


fouetté

by perihelion (mattratat)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: (see disaster riku tag with any further questions), College AU, M/M, Modern AU, Thunderstorms, and barre, dancer sora, disaster gay riku, loose interpretation of the pre-law history major, lots of melancholy and angst but with a happy ending, slow burn but not really, you can pry riku and roxas friendship out of my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-03-30 00:24:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19030978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattratat/pseuds/perihelion
Summary: Roxas was right; he should have just taken that damn art history class.But then, the door opened, he looked up, and immediately celebrated every decision  that had led him to this moment.Roxas was a fool; taking ballet was the best decision Riku had ever made.First, let it be known that Riku did not, under any circumstances, consider himself a romantic, hopeless or otherwise. However, the moment he first laid eyes on the instructor, that changed.





	1. from the bones buried in the sand

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone!!!!!! 
> 
> y'all dancer sora is just a godtier concept i've been seeing around a lot lately, (check out [foxdreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxdreams/pseuds/foxdreams)' fic for godtier content in this area too bc their fics are amazing anYWAYS-) 
> 
> i just wanted to say a huge thank u to [soup](https://twitter.com/spookysoupyy)for being an amazing and sweet beta reader (without even being asked!!!) for this fic and having the best ideas and suggestions!!! and a huge thanks to [jess](https://twitter.com/whatsashemlen) as well for reading through it as well!!!! 
> 
> also, fun fact: fouetté is a ballet term that literally translates to "whipped," which is exactly what riku is in this fic thank u for coming to my tedtalk

If Riku could pinpoint the moment life started to feel meaningless, he would have said that it was the day he stepped onto Radiant Garden University’s campus for the first time. The exact moment, he would guess, would have been the long, boring campus tour while his dad stood next to him with a hand clamped on his shoulder, telling him how good the school would be for his future as a lawyer. 

 

But, the thing was, Riku didn’t want to be a lawyer. In fact, most days, there wasn’t anything he wanted to be less. But he wanted to go to college (at least, he did at the time) and the only way to get his father to pay for it had been if he had agreed to go to law school, so law school it was. 

 

That had been the biggest mistake of Riku’s life. Or one of them, at the very least. 

 

He knew for a fact that he was being dramatic. After all, he was privileged to even be able to attend RGU, let alone have his father pay for his tuition. That didn’t make him hate it any less, however, and it certainly didn’t help bring any meaning to his life. 

 

When he was younger, he hadn’t minded the idea of being a lawyer so much. He was always going to be one and, really, he thought they helped people. He liked the idea of helping people. He was perfectly happy to put his dreams of digging up bones in the desert and investigating ancient cities on the backburner if it meant he could  _ help people _ . 

 

Of course, then he’d grown up, and realized that that just wasn’t the sort of lawyer his father wanted him to be. Why help people when you could help corporations for twice the profit? 

 

Thus began Riku’s long descent into apathy towards his life. 

 

* * *

  
  
  


It was Tuesday, and a rather uneventful one at that. 

 

It began the way all Tuesdays do, with a groan and moan, covers pulled back over his head at six in the morning, before the sun even bothered to grace the world with its presence. 

 

It continued with a phone blaring an alarm and Riku’s hand carelessly knocking it off the bed as he attempted to hit the snooze button and failed miserably. 

 

Riku liked to tell himself he was a morning person. He woke up at around six o’clock every day to drag himself to the gym for at least an hour before starting his routine. He did enjoy mornings a fair amount, just… after he got out of bed. He absolutely hated waking up every morning, praying desperately for just a minute or two of extra sleep. After the daily angst minute, however, he found mornings quite enjoyable. 

 

However, today was looking like it might be an exception, because he could hear the sounds of someone moving around in the living room. 

 

Roxas was, by all means,  _ not _ a morning person. There were few occasions where Riku had known him to get up before nine o’clock at the earliest and none of them were happy memories. Most of them involved all nighters and a really irritated and cranky Roxas, but a few stood out, like the time the apartment complex had caught on fire and the smoke inhalation had nearly killed them both. 

 

(It didn’t. They were just dramatic and Roxas had argued that even though the smoke hadn’t  _ really _ filled their apartment enough to be dangerous, it might as well have killed him instead of making them endure the twenty minutes outside in the rain while the fire department had to put it out.)

 

He couldn’t fathom why on earth his roommate would be up so early in the morning and, honestly, he didn’t want to think yet, so instead he shoved his arm down the crack between his bed and the wall, where his phone had fallen after his half awake fumble, to fish it back out. 

 

Groggily, he went through the list of things to check. Unsurprisingly, there was a new text from Kairi. There were only about 3 contacts in Riku’s phone that actually messaged him, but Kairi held the number one spot. 

 

He rubbed his eyes with one hand, opening the message with the other. She told him to check his email, adding a hundred exclamation marks at the end. It must be important, he realized, because that was an excessive amount of marks, even for her. 

 

He switched apps, dragging the emails down to refresh the page. He frowned when nothing appeared before realizing she must have meant his school email. Which could only be bad news.

 

And it was. 

 

Riku would defend his decision to put off some of his gen-eds until the day he died if he had to. There was no way he could put up with a semester chock full of only law and history classes. It had never screwed him over before, after all.

 

Except now, that is. 

 

_ Class Cancellation  _ glared at him from the subject line.

 

“Fuck,” he said. 

 

_ Art 3400 (Sculpture in Ancient Paganism) Fall semester  _ **_CANCELLED_ **

 

_ Fuck, _ he texted Kairi, before launching himself out of bed and into the living room.

 

The living room itself wasn’t much of a room; maybe ten whole feet of space that he shared with Roxas. It was attached to the kitchen on one side, with a couch and tv shoved in the other. The furniture and decorations were nice enough, if you liked the modern  _ we bought all our furniture second-hand with our parents money _ aesthetic. Roxas’ jacket was laying on the floor, despite the fact that Riku constantly tried to get him to put his shit away. The television was the nicest thing either of them owned and was mounted to the wall with the sole purpose of running video games. The couch was an utter mess, with scratch marks from the previous owner they hoped were from a cat and holes in the cushions. Roxas was now sitting on said couch, glaring at his phone and nursing a cup of coffee. 

 

“Morning,” Riku said, out of habit.

 

“Die,” Roxas responded, also out of habit.

 

Riku was used to such bullshit from his roommate and didn’t comment further on it, instead grabbing his laptop off the counter and powering it up before going to the Keurig to start his own coffee. 

 

It blinked at him and he tried not to feel too much despair over Kairi’s message.

 

“Aren’t you going to the gym?” Roxas asked. 

 

“Have to deal with something first,” Riku replied, watching the coffee pour from the machine into his cup. It was hypnotic. “Class got cancelled.”

 

“Shit. Important one?”

 

“One of the gens. I need the credit to graduate,” Riku answered as the last of the drops fell into his mug. 

 

“Shit,” Roxas said again. 

 

There was a brief silence as Riku moved back to the counter, pulling up the course catalog on his laptop. After a moment, he heard Roxas shift on the couch. 

 

Roxas peered over his shoulder in the next moment as he opened the search for Tier 2 Fine Arts credits, praying silently that there were classes left. 

 

Two. 

 

An art history that was only three credit hours a week but met twice for two hours and a ballet class for three hours but only met for two a week.

 

Really, it was a no brainer which he was going to pick.

 

As he added ballet to his enrollment cart, Roxas snorted. “Ballet?” 

 

“Does it look like I have any better options?”

 

“Yeah. There’s…” Roxas’ voice trailed off as he squinted to read the screen. He must not have his contacts in yet. “Art in the Middle Ages and the Rise of Christian Artists.” 

 

“Yeah, no thanks,” Riku said, wrinkling his nose at just thought of how boring that class would be. “I guess a bunch of classes got cancelled last minute, though. Probably more budget cuts. It’s just weird that it’s this close to the start of the semester.”

 

“That blows,” Roxas said, in a tone of voice that said he clearly didn’t care. 

 

Riku sighed. There wasn’t much he could do about it, but he really hoped that ballet wasn’t going to suck. He wasn’t worried about the physical aspect- after all, he went to the gym at least once every day- but he would never describe himself as graceful. The description said it was a beginners class, all welcome, so hopefully it actually meant that. 

 

He’d just have to wait and see, he supposed. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The remaining two weeks of summer vacation were rather uneventful compared to that morning. 

 

Every day, Riku groaned as he shut his alarm off and rolled out of bed to go to the gym before spending the rest of the day reading outside or doing various household chores with Roxas. He met up with Kairi for lunch a few times, smiling as she went on and on about this new girl she had a crush on at work. Apparently the girl was Kairi’s usual type; kind of edgy but really sweet, wore a lot of black, and was absolutely terrible at making coffee but sweet enough to the customers to keep from getting fired. 

 

On the night before classes began again, Roxas invited him to an end of summer party at his friend Axel’s house. It was a nice invitation, but Riku didn’t particularly want to go to his first classes hungover. Not this early in the year, anyways. So Roxas rolled his eyes at him and left, leaving Riku alone for probably the rest of the night. 

 

The apartment always felt bigger and emptier without Roxas lurking around it, but Riku tried to ignore the isolation. He never thought of himself as a lonely person, but that was just because he was lonely most of the time. 

 

But he’d made do before Roxas had moved in and he wasn’t about to let the melancholy ruin his last night of freedom before the responsibilities of law school set in once more. 

 

So, thirty minutes later,  he was booting up his laptop to find a movie to watch to mourn the end of summer. He’d finally picked one and turned it on when there was a soft ding to alert him to new mail and he pulled up his email. 

 

He wasn’t surprised to see an email from one of his professors in the inbox. The subject line read  _ Can’t wait for a great semester! _ so Riku was already feeling irritated before he even opened it.

 

He clicked on it, though, and was happy to find a short message. 

 

_ Hi everyone in DNCE 1020! _

 

_ I’m really excited to start class with you all tomorrow! It’s going to be a fun class this semester, I promise!  _

 

_ I’ve gotten a few emails about whether or not ballet shoes are required for this class, so I thought it might be a good idea to just send a mass email out.  _ **_NO, it’s not required!_ ** _ You are welcome to wear them if you’d like, but if not, just bring a fun pair of socks!  _

 

Riku was fairly certain that he didn’t own a fun pair of socks. What did that even mean? 

 

_ Thanks so much and see you all tomorrow at 3! Email me if you have any more questions!  _

 

_ Best,  _

 

_ Sora  _

 

Riku thought that it was a little weird that he signed the email with his first name, but then again, he’d had some pretty chill professors before. One even made them refer to him as Dawg, just Dawg, in all professional correspondence and in class, so a first name wasn’t all that weird. 

 

He closed the email out and resolved to buy a fun pair of socks the next time he was at the store. 

 

As far as syllabus days went, Riku could have had a worse time during his first few classes of the day. There were three in his Monday/Wednesday/Friday blocks, the first two being back to back in the mornings before ballet later in the afternoon. The break in between was nice, but he could already tell that he was going to be bored of sitting and waiting in the library by the end of the week. 

 

In all honesty, there was nothing for him to do yet, considering only one of his classes had assigned homework, and it was just a reading. Maybe he’d start it out of sheer boredom more than anything else. 

 

Or. 

 

He remembered the email from the night before and his vow to buy “fun” socks for class. A quick glance at his phone told him that he still had a good half an hour until he had to even worry about making his way towards the dance building. He was pretty sure that he had seen socks for sale at the drugstore down the street from the library. 

 

Oh, what the hell, he might as well go look, right? 

 

Forty minutes and a confused cashier later, Riku became the proud owner of a new pair of socks. 

 

They were atrocious, really, bright pinky and fuzzy and covered in polka dots. Kairi would have unabashedly adored them. 

 

He was also going to be late for class at this rate because he had spent far too long debating whether or not he really wanted to waste 5 munny on a pair of  _ socks. _

 

The dance building was, thankfully, not all that far from the drugstore. He’d never been in it before, but he knew of it, and that was enough to get him there. 

 

It was a dreary old building, one of the oldest on campus. Some said that that made it charming, but Riku knew that it just meant that it didn’t have air conditioning. 

 

It  _ was _ a neat looking building, in all honesty, with tall doors and windows, held up by old marble columns. It looked like something out of a movie set rather than a building he passed every day on the way to class.

 

The door was heavy when he opened it, slamming shut behind him. The sound echoed down the long hallway, a little more ominous than he was really hoping for. 

 

He pulled out his phone, checking again what the room number for class was. He could already feel the lack of air movement around him and resigned himself to a long, sweaty semester. 

 

Room 341. Up the stairs it was, then. 

  
  


Riku was one of the first students to step into the classroom (studio?), despite being a good five minutes late. It occurred to him, as he stared at the ground and avoided eye contact with the other seven or so people in the room at all cost, that maybe no one else was going to show up. 

 

Roxas was right; he should have just taken that damn art history class. 

 

But then, the door opened, he looked up, and immediately celebrated every decision that had led him to this moment. 

 

Roxas was a fool; taking ballet was the best decision Riku had ever made. 

 

First, let it be known that Riku did not, under any circumstances, consider himself a romantic, hopeless or otherwise. However, the moment he first laid eyes on the instructor, that changed. 

 

(At least, Riku assumed that the guy was the instructor, considering he was the only person in the room wearing ballet shoes.)

 

He typed as quickly as he could, sending Roxas a quick text to drop his three o’clock class and sign up for ballet as fast as he could because Riku was, honest to God, not entirely sure he could make it through the semester without moral support. 

 

The guy didn’t look old enough to be a professor. He was at least half a foot shorter than Riku (if not more), with messy brown hair that stuck out in all directions like the most glorious mop of bedhead Riku had ever seen. 

 

He was grinning at them and, really, it wasn’t fair for anyone to have teeth that white. There was no way that was natural, or maybe Riku was just a little jealous, considering how his horrible coffee habits had stained his teeth throughout the years. Or both. 

 

(It was probably both.) 

 

The man waved, glancing around at each person for a moment before speaking. 

 

“Hi, guys! My name’s Sora. I know syllabus days are super boring, but I still have to pass these out to you.” 

 

Riku tried not to stutter when Sora handed him the page and their hands brushed. He felt like an absolute fool, but he was pretty sure he believed in love at first sight now. 

 

He then told himself to get his head out of his ass and to get it together as Sora talked to them. 

 

“So, long story short, we’ll be covering ballet in the French and Russian styles, but mostly in the French, because I like that one better. You can wear pretty much whatever you want so long as it isn’t jeans or a jockstrap because I have to say that, and also because it would be really weird.” 

 

A few of the students laughed at this and Sora beamed at them. It was fucking adorable. 

 

At this rate, Riku was so going to have to drop this class. He wasn’t going to spend a single minute of it focusing. 

 

“So, now that all of that boring crap is out of the way, how ‘bout we go around and introduce ourselves? It’s a pretty small class, so hopefully I’ll get all of your names pretty quickly. Tell us your name, year, major, and… a fun fact, I guess? Yeah, a fun fact sounds good! Oh, and also your dance experience. If you don’t have any experience, that’s totally okay! That’s what we’re here now form,” Sora said, his tone light and cheerful. 

 

“I’ll start. My name is Sora and I’m a junior. In case you couldn’t guess, I’m a dance major and I’m teaching this class because the dance professors didn’t want to and because there’s only, like, five of us in my year and they make us teach. For a fun fact, I can do backflips! Who wants to go next? Oh, yeah, and I’ve been dancing since I was three years old.” 

 

Unsurprisingly, no one volunteered. 

 

Sora called on someone, a girl with blonde hair that had an air of bitchiness that Riku couldn’t tell if he admired or hated. 

 

“My name’s Larxene. I’m a freshman meteorology major and I once got struck by lightning and lived, bitch. And I did a bunch of jazz when I was younger, but I haven’t danced in, like, five years,” she said, all in one breath. It was kind of amazing how much she managed to spew out at once, actually. 

 

Sora stared at her, wide eyed like a child. “Struck by lightning? That’s awesome!” 

 

She smirked. “It was sick as hell.” 

 

He nodded. “I bet.” 

 

There was a brief pause as he looked around the room for his next victim, which Riku spent desperately wishing that it would be anyone but him. He wasn’t that lucky. 

 

They made eye contact and Sora’s smile grew even larger. 

 

“Your turn,” he said. 

 

“My name is Riku,” Riku started, wishing that it didn’t sound as lame as he thought that it did. “I’m a senior in pre-law, and I’ve never been struck by lightning?” 

 

It was a poor attempt at humor, but Sora’s slight laugh indicated that he seemed to like it. 

 

“And I have no dance experience,” Riku admitted. Unless getting drunk freshman year and making Axel teach him to twerk at four in the morning in the middle of the street counted. Somehow, he didn’t think that it did. 

 

Sora grinned at him before moving onto the next person. 

 

Despite it being a small group, it still managed to take up a good ten minutes or so. Sora seemed genuinely interested in their introductions, occasionally asking questions and making comments. 

 

Sora glanced at his watch as the last person finished their introduction. 

 

“To be honest, I wasn’t really planning on starting any actual dancing today, but that took a lot less time than I thought it would,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair, making it even more of a mess. 

 

“So, how about we call it a day and then we can get started on the basics on Wednesday?” 

 

Everyone seemed to be in agreement that, yes, that was a good idea. 

 

Riku moved to grab his bag from where he’d stashed it along the wall, nearly jumping out of his skin when he turned to go and saw Sora standing right in front of him. 

 

“Hi,” Riku said, cringing instantaneously at the sound of his own voice. 

 

“Hi,” Sora replied. “Nice socks.”

 

Riku glanced down at his feet, confused for just a moment, before remembering his stupid purchase less than an hour ago. 

 

“Thanks, they’re hideous. But you did say we should wear fun socks.”

 

Sora laughed at that and, even though he knew that it wasn’t actually that funny, Riku couldn’t help but feel happy at the fact that he’d been able to make him laugh. It was a sweet sound, light and airy, like Sora himself. He imagined that he could listen to it for hours and never get annoyed. 

 

He also imagined that he was losing his goddamn mind, thinking like this over a guy he’d known for all of maybe twenty minutes. This was more drunk Riku’s style, not his. 

 

“Yeah, that’s fair, I did,” Sora said. “I just came over to give you extra homework.” 

 

Riku raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh?” 

 

“Your fun fact,” he started to explain, “Wasn’t really about you, was it? It doesn't count. Come up with another one for Wednesday, yeah?” 

 

Riku wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that, so he simply nodded. “Okay.” 

 

“Great!” Sora chirped. “I’ll see you Wednesday, then!” 

 

He was gone in a flash, waving one hand in goodbye as he took off out the door, leaving Riku wondering what the hell actually constituted a fun fact in his wake. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“Roxas, I’m serious,” Riku groaned, pressing his head into his hands as he slumped on the couch. “I’m the most boring person ever. Help me.” 

 

“Okay, two things,” Roxas said. He was sitting at the counter, sipping a juice box as he rolled his eyes at Riku. “First, it isn’t six feet deep, Riku. You’re overthinking this.” 

 

“And?” Riku said, glancing at him through the cracks in his fingers. 

 

Roxas took his time answering, taking a long slurp of his juice. “You’re right. You’re fucking boring.” 

 

Riku threw a pillow him. Roxas ducked it easily, but it still felt good to hurl it at him. 

 

“Thanks, asshole. Real helpful.” 

 

“Well, shit, what am I supposed to say?” 

 

“Anything else.”

 

“Ugh, fine. How about…” Roxas’ voice trailed off as he thought. 

 

It was embarrassing, really, that neither of them seemed to be coming up with something. 

 

Riku was mostly just embarrassed by how badly he  _ wanted _ to have a good fun fact to tell Sora, because he wanted to impress him. It was pathetic.    
  


“You could tell him how much of a dinosaur nerd you are,” Roxas finally suggested. 

 

Riku tried to hide his wince and Roxas was kind enough not to comment on it. “Yeah, that could work.” 

 

“Who knows, he might even be impressed by how much of  giant nerd you are,” Roxas teased him, a sly grin spreading across his face. 

 

Riku wished he had another pillow to throw at him.

 

“Maybe he’ll even think it’s cute that we spent your twenty-first birthday at a museum,” Roxas continued, his voice pitching up a little in a singsong tune as he continued to mock Riku. 

 

Riku flipped him his middle finger. 

 

Roxas threw his juice box at him. 

 

Riku decided he wanted new friends. 

 

Whenever that thought struck, he always had the same solution: text Kairi. 

 

He had texted her before seeking out Roxas’ help, but there wasn’t much he could do if she wasn’t going to text him back. 

 

“Dinosaurs are cool,” he muttered. 

 

“You know what else is cool? Grocery shopping. Stop moping and come with me.” 

 

“I’m not moping,” Riku shot back, even though he definitely was. Still, he pushed himself off the couch. 

 

The conversation had ended, but that didn’t stop Riku from thinking about the stupid fun fact he had to come up with. He couldn’t figure out why he was so hung up on this, but he was. 

 

(“It’s because you’re fucking gay,” a voice in his head argued. It sounded suspiciously like Roxas.) 

 

In the end, when the time for class finally caught up with him on Wednesday, he decided that he really was just going to tell Sora about his love for dinosaurs and fossils. Despite Roxas’ jabs, he knew that it wasn’t that lame. 

 

Or, it was, but Riku didn’t care.

 

(That was a lie. He cared. He really didn’t want Sora to think he was lame.) 

 

To his surprise, Sora didn’t make him present his fun fact to the entire class. In fact, Sora didn’t say anything about it at all to him before class started either and Riku thought he might be off the hook. 

 

He pushed it from his mind as class started, Sora instructing them to all line up at the barre. 

 

“So, if you didn’t know, all ballet terms are in French,” Sora was telling them as he dragged a barre into the center of the room, “It actually originated in Italy, but this isn’t a history class, so I’ll save the lecture for later.” 

 

A few people nodded their appreciation for that. 

 

“I do have a handout to give you all at the end of class, though, with the basic terminology and their movements. We’ll have a short quiz over it next Wednesday.” 

 

A few people groaned at that, including Larxene and another blonde girl Riku couldn’t remember the name of. 

 

“It’ll be easy, I promise!” Sora said with a laugh. “Now, come on, let’s start with stretches. Just follow along.”

 

Sora led them in stretches for a good few minutes. Some of them were stretches Riku knew and others were wildly unfamiliar, stretching muscles he didn’t even know he had. 

 

And that was the easy part. 

 

It wasn’t that Sora was a bad teacher. In fact, Riku thought he was a pretty good one so far. He showed them the proper movement for their first move, the  _ tendue.  _ It actually looked simple enough to Riku, just the foot striking out, but then Sora had them follow along and Riku understood what true cramps were as he tried to point his toe and slide it out while keeping his arm in first position (which Sora had also explained to them before demonstrating the tendue). 

 

It seemed like no time had passed at all, but before Riku knew it, Sora was announcing the end of class and pulling a short stack of papers out of his backpack. Riku almost couldn’t believe that that was all they were learning today, but he also had the feeling that his feet were going to be aching something fierce the next day, so he wasn’t going to complain too much. 

 

He had definitely forgotten about the fun fact assignment until Sora cornered him before he could leave the studio. 

 

The first thing he realized was that Sora was holding one of the handouts for him to take. The second was that Sora was staring at him expectantly. 

 

_ Oh yeah. _

 

Riku took the handout, glancing down at it for just a moment before meeting Sora’s eyes again. They were such a bright shade of blue that it threw him off for a moment. 

 

“So?” Sora prompted. 

 

“So?” Riku repeated.

 

“Fun fact?” Sora reminded him, his grin widening just slightly.

 

“Oh, right,” Riku said. For a moment, all he could do was draw a blank and he simply stared at Sora with his mouth half open, but then it clicked again. “I know a lot of fun facts about dinosaurs?”

 

“Well, I wanted a fun fact about you,” Sora said, his expression shifting into a pout. “But it’ll do!”

 

Riku wasn’t really sure what to say to that, so he simply nodded.

 

“So does that mean you’re any good at paleontology?” Sora asked. There was something in his expression that Riku couldn’t quite read, but he thought it looked a little something like hope. 

 

Slowly, he nodded again. He knew a  _ lot _ about paleontology, after all. 

 

“In that case, is there any chance you’re free sometime next week?” Sora continues, “I’m taking an Intro to Paleo class and I can already tell I’m going to need a tutor. I’ll buy you lunch in exchange?”

 

Riku thought he ought to say no, that he was busy and didn’t really know that much, but Sora’s big blue eyes were wide and pleading, and, god, did he want to study dinosaurs with him. It was an itch he hadn’t allowed himself to scratch in years, one that would certainly bleed if he reached for it, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Yeah, I could definitely do that.”

 

Sora’s face lit up like the sun. “You’re the best, Riku!” 

 

Riku wasn’t so sure about that, but he smiled anyways. “It’s no problem.”

 

“So, when are you free next week?” He asked.

 

Riku had to think about it for a moment, before remembering the annoyingly long break he had between classes. “Does anytime from twelve to three on Mondays or Wednesdays work for you?” 

 

“Yeah! My class ends at one, so that would be great!” Sora was beaming. Riku found it hard to believe that anyone could be this excited about tutoring. “Can I get your phone number so we can figure out where to meet?”

 

He held out his phone for Riku, who promptly took it and typed his name and number in. Sora took it back and tapped something out on the screen and a moment later, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. 

 

“There!” Sora chirped, “Now we can work something out!” 

 

“Cool,” Riku said lamely, because he wasn’t a master of communication. 

 

“I’ll see you then,” Sora said, turning to go. 

 

He left Riku waving goodbye after him. 

 

When he checked his phone on the walk home, he saw that, rather than just saying his name, Sora had sent him a picture of Fred from the old Scooby Doo cartoons saying “Fuck!” He couldn’t hold back the soft laugh at the silly sight. Something about the message had Sora written all over it, even if Riku couldn’t pinpoint what it was. 

 

And, of course, he couldn’t just  _ not _ send a meme back. He scrolled through his camera roll for a good five minutes (nearly missing one of his turns in the process) before finally settling on one Roxas had sent him a few days ago, a picture of an opossum screaming with the caption [TECHNO MUSIC PLAYING]. 

 

The little grey bubble popped up to show that Sora was typing, and Riku’s heart soared. 

 

It surprised him, really, how much he and Sora texted over the next few days. He had expected to just figure out a time when they could meet, but instead they sent messages near constantly. Even past the memes, Riku realized that Sora was just… really easy to talk to. And he didn’t mind that Riku was absolutely atrocious at texting. Roxas and Kairi always got on his case for taking forever to answer their messages, but Sora never said anything about it. Maybe it was just because they didn’t know each other well enough yet, but Riku didn’t feel the pressure to immediately respond like he did with his other friends. It was nice.

 

At first, it was a little weird. Sora was technically his professor (even though Sora insisted that it really wasn’t the case, and maybe that was true; the dance college was set up super weird compared to Arts and Sciences), but they became such fast friends that Riku didn’t even care. Besides, Sora was a year younger than him and ended all of his messages with ‘!!!!!!!’, so it was hard to take him seriously as an authority figure. 

 

They set the time for their study session for Monday at one, with the intent to work (or at least try to work) until they had to be at the studio at three. Sora insisted on meeting at a restaurant, saying he had to pay Riku back for his help by buying him lunch at the very least. Riku had tried to insist that, really, it was okay, but he quickly realized that Sora was incredibly stubborn and wouldn’t budge. 

 

By the time Monday rolled around, Riku was incredibly anxious to see Sora again. Part of him really, really wanted to see him, but the other half of Riku that was a complete and utter disaster gay didn’t even want to risk saying something stupid. 

 

He supposed that his nerves were obvious, considering Roxas had yelled “Have fun at your date!” mockingly at him when he’d left their apartment that morning. Riku had managed to keep from throwing anything at him, this time, but it was still haunting him as he made his way towards the restaurant they’d decided on.    
  


It was just a study session, but Riku knew himself enough that he could admit that he really wanted it to be a study date. Like, he really, really wanted it to be a study date. 

 

His phone buzzed in his hand. 

 

_ hey!!!!! see u soon!!!!! _

 

Riku smiled at the message, his nerves soothing a little bit at the now familiar sight of exclamation marks. 

 

He had forgotten how easy making friends could be. It was sad, in a way, how out of practice he was. Or maybe it wasn’t, but Sora made it seem so simple. Like they hadn’t only just met a week ago. 

 

He put his phone back into his pocket, pushing open the door to the restaurant. He glanced around and didn’t spot Sora anywhere before one of the servers greeted him. 

 

There was something familiar about the server that bugged Riku, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember ever meeting him before. And he certainly didn’t look like the type he could forget, either. Jet black hair almost as messy as Sora’s, with a face full of piercings and the nicest eyebrows Riku had ever seen. 

 

Still, he couldn’t figure out why he seemed so familiar. 

 

“Yo,” the guy greeted. “How many?” 

 

“Two,” Riku answered.

 

The man- Vanitas, his nametag read- whistled low. “Hot date?” 

 

“No,” Riku answered quickly, too quickly. Vanitas raised a perfectly crafted eyebrow at him, but shrugged as he grabbed two menus. 

 

“Lame. Follow me.” 

 

Riku did as he was told until Vanitas had him tucked away in a booth and left to get waters for him and Sora. Across the store, the door opened, and Riku glanced up to see Sora waving at him and making his way over. 

 

He slid into the booth across from Riku, dropping his bag onto the seat next to him. “Sorry I’m late!”

 

“You’re, like, only three minutes late,” Riku pointed out. Honestly, he hadn’t even noticed. 

 

Sora’s face reddened the tiniest bit and he shrugged. “Fair enough. Have you looked at the menu yet? Their veggie burgers are to die for?” 

 

“Are you a vegetarian?” Riku asked. 

 

“Only on weekdays,” Sora chuckled, flipping his menu open. “Weekends are for chicken and milkshakes, though.”

 

Riku was fairly certain that milkshakes were still technically vegetarian, but he didn’t correct him. “Understandable.” 

 

Vanitas came back then, all but dropping the waters carelessly onto their table. “Ready to order?” 

 

Riku hadn’t so much as opened his menu yet, but Sora was looking at him expectantly, so he nodded. 

 

“I’ll take the veggie burger,” he said. Sora beamed at him. Riku wished it didn’t make his heart skip as hard as it did. 

 

Vanitas scratched it down onto his notepad quickly before turning to Sora, taking his order, and vanishing to the back of the store again. 

 

“So, paleontology,” Riku prompted. 

 

Sora groaned almost instantaneously. 

 

“It’s already such a headache, and we’re just going over the basic vocab,” he complained, digging around in his backpack for a moment before retrieving a bright pink notebook. Riku tried not to judge him too harshly for owning it. “I can’t keep any of it straight.”

 

Riku had to bite back a joke about just how straight he hoped Sora could be. 

 

Instead, he nodded, holding out his hand so Sora could pass him the notebook. As he flipped open to the definitions copied down, he couldn’t help but cringe at how bad Sora’s handwriting was. He made a mental note to himself to copy the notes over for himself. 

 

Still, he recognized most of the terms at first glance. Seeing them in writing, even something as simple as the scribbled “paleoanthropology ” felt like coming home. He swallowed down a lump of bittersweetness in his throat. 

 

“So, you really don’t mind helping me?” Sora asked. 

 

“I really don’t,” Riku assured him, nodding slightly as his eyes continued to move down the page. “I really like this kind of stuff.” 

 

“Awesome! I really liked it when I was younger,” Sora rambled, his voice wistful, “But I never really got it, if that makes sense? Like it’s so cool and interesting and I love it at the base level, but I’m just not smart enough for the specifics, ya know?” 

 

Riku frowned a little at that. “I doubt that. It’s tough stuff, but it’ll click eventually.” 

 

“I definitely have a glimmer of hope now, at least, thanks to you,” Sora countered. 

 

Despite how sweet that sentiment was, Riku had just taken a sip of water and immediately proceeded to choke on it once he processed what Sora had said.

 

“Oh shit, are you okay?!” Sora’s concern was genuine, which really didn’t help as Riku sputtered to recover air and his dignity. 

 

“Yeah,” he managed to wheeze out. “Just went down the wrong tube.” 

 

“That’s the worst,” Sora said sympathetically. Riku was just glad he hadn’t gotten any water on the notebook. 

 

He heard the door chiming again as he finally managed to stop wheezing for air.

 

“Oh hey, Riku!” 

 

He looked up sharply in surprise at the sound of his own name, trying to find the source of it. Sora looked over his shoulder to see what Riku was looking at, looking as confused as Riku felt. 

 

He was confused at the sight of Roxas before him, because the voice he heard definitely didn’t belong to Roxas (and he should know, considering he lived with the guy). He was also confused because, while Roxas was a total asshole, he knew that he wasn’t petty enough to crash Riku’s study session. 

 

Then, Vanitas slid up behind Roxas and put his arm around his waist and something in Riku’s brain clicked. 

 

And he remembered just why exactly Vanitas looked so goddamn familiar. 

 

No wonder he couldn’t remember how he’d known the guy- he could barely remember anything from that night, which might make Riku sound like an alcoholic, but he maintained his stance that he wasn’t fairly strictly. There were exceptions to that, however, and the night in question happened to be one of them. 

 

“Hi, Ventus,” Riku said meekly, trying desperately to push away the memories. 

 

Unfortunately, it was unlikely that he’d ever be able to forget the mortifying shame of seeing Roxas making out with a stranger and trying to drag him off the stranger, 

(because they had a pact, damnit) only to realize that it wasn’t Roxas at all. Riku had known that Roxas was never very forthcoming with information about his personal life, but the fact that he’d managed to hide the existence of an entire ass twin was a grand feat. 

 

Riku had given him an earful for it at the time, but he doubted that Roxas had been listening. 

 

“Long time no see! What’re you doing here?” Ventus asked. He was clearly just trying to make small talk, but Riku kind of wished he would just go away. 

 

He made a vague gesture with his hands. “Studying. You?” 

 

“Came to bring this dumbass his lunch,” Ventus answered cheerfully, gesturing at a now pouting Vanitas with his thumb. “I gotta run back to class, though. It was good seeing you!” 

 

Riku didn’t entirely agree, but he didn’t say that to Ventus. The guy was nice enough, much nicer than Roxas at least, but he couldn’t help but drown in shame every time he saw him. He’d never been able to live that party down. 

 

After Vanitas had dragged Ventus somewhere in the back of the store, Sora finally turned back to him. “Friend of yours?”

 

“Roommate’s brother,” Riku said, shaking his head slightly. They weren’t really friends, after all. 

 

“And our waiter’s boyfriend,” Sora commented happily. “Small world.”

 

“Small world indeed,” Riku agreed.

 

“Speaking of,” Sora said, before launching into a long story with several tangents about his friends who had been dating for a year but never saw him at the same time and how he didn’t realize they’d been dating each other the whole time until he’d tried to set them up on a blind date. 

 

It was an interesting story, actually, and it turned out that Sora was really funny. 

 

It was nearly two and they were digging into their food by the time he realized that Sora had successfully managed to derail the entire meeting off its course of studying. Somehow, Riku couldn’t bring himself to mind. 

 

He liked getting to know Sora like this. He was the first new friend Riku had made in probably years and he was  _ excited _ about it. He wanted to know more about Sora, wanted to spend more time with him, paleontology related or not. 

 

It was a weird feeling, but Riku kind of liked it.

 

As three o’clock drew nearer, Sora started to realize what he did, gasping a “Shit, is that really the time?”

 

Riku nodded.

 

Sora groaned. “I haven’t learned anything.” 

 

Riku didn’t have anything to say to that, but Sora didn’t seem to mind.

 

“I’m so sorry! I was just having so much fun talking to you that I didn’t even realize how long it was taking.” 

 

“It’s fine,” Riku assured him, taking a long sip of his water. “I had fun, too.”

 

Normally, he wouldn’t have admitted that so freely, but there was something despairing in Sora’s expression that made him want to tell him that everything would be okay. 

 

“I guess I’ll just have to bug you to tutor me again sometime,” Sora sighed. Riku didn’t think that this was a particularly bad idea at all. “And hopefully not completely waste your time again.”

 

“I mean, it wasn’t completely wasted,” Riku said, his voice a little more teasing now. 

 

Sora faked a pout at him. It was cute as hell. “Good enough.” 

 

“Y’all wanna pay yet?” Vanitas asked, scaring the shit out of both of them. Throughout the course of lunch, they’d realized that he had the uncanny ability to just materialize out of thin air. 

 

“Oh yeah! We should probably leave for class soon,” Sora said, half to Vanitas and half to himself.

 

“Same check or separate?”

 

“Same,” Sora said at the same time Riku said, “Separate.”

 

Vanitas raised an eyebrow at them again. Riku wondered if he was doing it on purpose. 

 

“I told you I got it! It’s the least I can do,” Sora insisted.

 

“We didn’t even get any tutoring done” Riku pointed out.

 

“All the more reason,” Sora said, turning back to Vanitas. “Same check, please.”

 

Vanitas looked like he was trying very hard not to roll his eyes. “‘K.” 

 

“Next time, I’m paying,” Riku said, before Sora even had a chance to say anything. 

 

“We’ll see,” Sora replies in a way that made Riku think that Sora wasn’t going to let that happen one way or another. 

 

Riku, on the other hand, was just ecstatic to have another study date planned. 

 

_ Study session, _ he reminded himself. 

 

After Vanitas finally returned with the check, they took to the cash register across the store to pay for their food. Sora paid, despite one more instance from Riku that he really didn’t have to, and they made their way towards the door. Without either of them noticing, it had a started drizzling while they were eating. When they’d entered the restaurant, the sky had been a bright and beautiful blue, but looking outside now revealed a grey and dreary sky, the kind that made Riku want to grab a blanket and lay on the couch for the rest of the day.

 

The pair stood under the doorway for a moment, neither one of them really wanting to face the rain yet. 

 

Sora looked up at Riku, then back out at the rain, and back to Riku once more. 

 

“Race?” He challenged.

 

“You're on,” Riku declared.

 

Neither moved for a moment, until at once they both took off at once, sprinting in the direction of the dance building. 

 

The rain wasn’t even coming down that hard, but neither of them wanted to back down from the challenge now that it was issued. Sora’s laugh rang out as he gained the lead, but it didn’t last very long, thanks to Riku’s longer legs. 

 

As they ran, Riku couldn’t help but glance over at Sora. The rain dampened his hair and rolled down his cheeks. He looked a little bit ridiculous, to be honest, but he was laughing despite the inconvenience of the rain. The town blurred around them as they got farther and farther from the restaurant, the air around them filling with friendly taunts and jabs, and Riku just couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the start of something important. 

 

  
  


 


	2. to the stars scattered across the sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: i don't know when the next upload will be  
> me, less than a week later: hey guys 
> 
> big shoutout to the amazing [soup](https://twitter.com/spookysoupyy) (aka the nanny to my fic baby) and [kristin](https://twitter.com/dispositiongay) for being the most amazing betas i could ever ask for!!! this fic wouldn't be half of what it is without ur kind comments and suggestions!!!
> 
> now, onto that gay shit u've been waiting for

It was, really, longer than it should have been by the time Riku realized just how incredibly fucked he was. 

 

Two months had passed since he met Sora and now he couldn’t even remember how he’d managed to survive without him. Their friendship blossomed more than Riku could ever hoped for, and he was ecstatic. 

 

Mondays and Wednesdays had automatically become ‘Sora Days” in his mind. He couldn’t help it; their first study session had turned into a twice a week occurrence. After the first few weeks, Riku finally managed to get Sora to stop paying every time and they occasionally managed to actually get his paleontology homework done. Sora hadn’t been kidding when he said that he just couldn’t grasp the basic concepts, often struggling with terms and definitions that Riku had had memorized since he was six years old, but he was learning, slowly but surely. And Riku made a point to never comment on how slow the progress was after he realized that that seemed to be a sore spot for Sora. 

 

They had begun to hang out outside of those meetings, as well. It turned out they both knew Axel’s crowd, Sora having played lacrosse with both Axel and Isa for a year in high school before he’d decided to fully commit himself to dance, so weekly hangouts with the entire group started to become more and more common. And Sora got along fairly well with everyone he hadn’t known before, too. Roxas became fond of him rather quickly, bonding with him after they realized they shared the same favorite video game series, while Kairi absolutely adored him from the moment they met. She’d immediately asked Sora to teach her how to do a pirouette and he’d been thrilled to show her. 

 

Slowly, but surely, Riku began to know Sora as more than just his hot ballet teacher who was terrible at paleontology. He learned that Sora’s favorite color was aquamarine and that when he was little he’d wanted to be a mermaid when he grew up. He learned that Sora’s mom had raised him by herself and that he’d never met his father. He learned that Sora had started dancing in a jazz class, but had quickly fallen in love with ballet and modern. He adored hip hop and he lived with his two best friends, a couple of girls he referred to as ‘Nam and Xi.’ 

 

He learned that Sora was a morning person, but had a bad habit of sleeping until noon. He was a dance major, but minoring in creative writing because it “sounded fun.” He learned that Sora taught zumba and barre classes at the school’s gym to make rent every month and that his mom’s dog’s name was named after his favorite childhood cartoon character. 

 

Riku learned more and more about him every day, a million little things that added up to become the grand picture of Sora. And he was absolutely hooked on it.

 

It was October when Riku realized how deeply in love with him he was and it was Roxas that pointed it out to him. 

 

Riku had gotten into the habit of practicing ballet outside of class now. Not often, and never for long, but occasionally he’d stand at the countertop in the apartment’s kitchen and use it as a barre, practicing his  plié or jumps. Usually, he did this when he knew Roxas was out of the apartment, but on this particular day, Roxas’ class ended super early (or maybe he decided to skip it, which was much more plausible), and he walked through their front door to see Riku doing his best to point his toes mid-jump.  

 

“Oh my God,” Roxas had muttered, rolling his eyes at him. “You are so fucking whipped.” 

 

Riku had sputtered and tried to deny, but Roxas wouldn’t hear a word of it. Because he was. He was fucking  _ whipped _ . 

 

He just wished that he hadn’t finally admitted it to himself on a Sora Day because he already knew that it was going to be hard to look him in the eyes after that bomb had dropped. 

 

As much as Riku tried to deny it, the thought was still stuck in his mind like a goddamn parasite two hours later when he was opening the door for Sora. They had come to the realization that going out to eat twice a week was fun, but a little expensive, especially in a college town. So Riku had finally gotten his head out of his ass and invited Sora over to the apartment on the promise of sandwiches and snacks. 

 

“Hey!” Sora greeted as he stepped through the threshold, glancing around to take in the apartment before him. “Nice place, dude.” 

 

“Thanks,” Riku replied, more so to be polite than anything else. He knew that the apartment was nice, since his father was paying for most of the rent. Roxas chipped in a little bit, but Riku insisted that he didn’t pay much. It just wasn’t fair that Riku got off scot-free for rent every month but Roxas was constantly picking up extra shifts at work just to get by. “Roxas is in class so he won’t be here to bug us.” 

 

“Loser,” Sora said, wrinkling his nose. “Who actually goes to class?”

 

It took all of Riku’s self control to make a comment about how Sora’s grades might not be so bad if he actually went to his classes.

 

Instead, he said, “Beats me. You can throw your shit anywhere, I’ll start on lunch.”

 

“Okay!” Sora chirped, dropping his bag on the floor. 

 

He went to sit at the counter, hoisting himself on it as Riku rummaged around in the fridge. His legs didn’t reach the ground, so he swung them absentmindedly, watching as Riku started to randomly pull things out and onto the counter beside him. “Do you want any help?”

 

Riku shook his head. “Do you want turkey or ham?”

 

“Turkey,” Sora answered. He pulled out his phone to stare at as Riku threw various ingredients together. After getting lunch with each other so many times, he had a vague idea of what Sora liked, or at least he hoped so. Sora continued, “By the way, question.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“We’re starting fittings for the winter dance concert on Wednesday,” Sora started. 

 

Riku knew well enough what the winter dance concert was. It still wasn’t until late November (or was it early December?), but every semester the School of Dance held a concert to showcase their students. Sora had explained all of this in class a few days ago, reminding them that they had to attend and write a short paper on it as part of their final. 

 

“Okay.” 

 

“So, the fitting is from one to three,” Sora continued casually.

 

Riku couldn’t help but let the disappointment creep into his heart. After all, that was their time. He didn’t want to miss any opportunity to spend time with Sora. The other, less delusional half of his brain reminded him that this wasn’t exactly something Sora could skip, so he needed to pull his head out of his ass and not be angsty about it. 

 

“Do you want to come with me? It might end up being super boring, but Aqua is doing the costumes this year and she’s really great, so it shouldn’t be too bad, I think you’ll like her!” Sora rambled. It took Riku’s brain a minute to catch up and realize that Sora had actually invited him to come with him to the fitting. 

 

He looked up, meeting those beautiful blue eyes with his own, frowning out of habit. “She won’t mind me being there?” 

 

Sora waved his worries away, saying, “Nah, not at all. She’s really nice. And I really don’t want to cancel on you.” 

 

Riku’s heart skipped a little at that and he tried to tell it to calm the hell down. “If you’re sure she’s okay with it.”

 

Sora beamed at him. “She is!” 

 

“Then I’ll be there,” Riku agreed, sliding Sora’s plate over to him. 

 

Sora’s smile was beautiful and bright as he started to ramble on about how nice it would be to have Riku there Wednesday. 

 

* * *

  
  


Wednesday rolled around uneventfully, but Riku still felt a little awkward as he approached the room designated for dance fittings.

 

It was a small room crammed on the top floor of the dance hall. Sora had admitted that it was basically an overly glorified cubby and that it would most likely be cramped with the three of them in there, but the warning wasn’t enough to prepare him for just how tiny the space was. It was, quite literally, a closet, and it was stuffed wall to wall with boxes. There were spare pieces of clothing strewn about, fantastical colors and glitter covering them. Riku guessed that the place was the storage room for the department’s costumes. 

 

He stepped in, nearly knocking his head on the doorframe, to see Sora standing in the middle of the tiny room. A girl with blue hair was crouching beside him, pulling measuring tape tight around his hips.

 

Sora glanced up as Riku answered, his eyes lighting up. “Hey! You came!” 

 

“I said I would, didn’t I?” Riku replied, raising an eyebrow. 

 

“Fair point,” Sora shrugged. “This is Aqua!”

 

The woman in question glanced up at Riku. She was holding a pin between her teeth and she waved at him before taking it out. “And you’re Riku, right?”

 

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Riku said, wondering how she knew his name already. 

 

“Sora’s told me a lot about you,” she said, which solved that mystery. 

 

“Not that much!” Sora protested, his tanned face turning a deep red. It was cute. 

 

“You’re the paleontology guy, right?” Aqua asked. She turned back to her measuring, moving from Sora’s hips to his thigh. 

 

“I guess,” Riku answered, leaning against the wall. “I wouldn’t really call myself that, though.” 

 

“Why not?” Aqua asked. She was probably just trying to be nice by asking him questions, but it cut into Riku’s heart like a dagger. 

 

“Riku’s a pre-law major,” Sora explained for him, bending his neck to look at Aqua. 

 

“Stay still,” she chided him. “Pre-law sounds terrible. No offense.” 

 

“None taken. It is terrible,” Riku said. 

 

“Also, there’s a stool over there if you want to sit,” she said, jutting her head towards the stool shoved into the corner. Riku crossed the three feet between him, having to shuffle past the two, and sat down. “Why are you doing it if it’s terrible.” 

 

Normally, Riku wasn’t one to talk about things like this with someone he’d just met. But Aqua had this air about her that made him want to confide in her, this air of caring that most people didn’t seem to have. So his stupid mouth opened, saying, “It was the only way to get my dad to pay for my schooling. He’s always wanted me to be a lawyer.”

 

He ignored the way that Sora was frowning at him. He’d never told him that before and he could imagine that Sora was feeling a little betrayed about it. 

 

Aqua hummed in understanding as she jotted down some numbers on her paper. She stood, stretching her arms, before grabbing ahold of Sora’s bicep and starting to measure it. “That sucks.”

 

She wasn’t judging him for it and she wasn’t trying to talk him into switching majors anyways, like most of his friends did. It was… nice. 

 

“I don’t really like talking about it,” Riku admitted. 

 

“Fair enough,” Aqua said, jotting down another number. 

 

There was enough uncomfortable silence to fill the room after that, but thankfully, Sora came to the rescue with the superpower of small talk and Riku’s awkward confession was forgotten. 

 

At least, he hoped it was. 

 

After that, though, the fitting didn’t feel so suffocating to Riku. Aqua and Sora chatted about the upcoming dance concert a lot, but made sure to keep him included in the conversation. And it was nice, getting to meet one of Sora’s friends that he hadn’t already known. It felt like a new step in their friendship, like Sora actually wanted his friends to meet Riku. He was probably overthinking it, though. 

 

He was surprisingly sad when Aqua checked the time on her phone and told them that they had better get a move on if they wanted to make it to ballet class in time. 

 

Sora thanked her profusely for her help and she insisted that it was simply her job, but she was glad that she got to work with him again. It was a very sweet exchange, one that lasted far too long, and ended with himself and Sora stumbling into ballet a good three minutes late. 

 

“Good afternoon, guys!” Sora greeted the class. 

 

They replied with various degrees of enthusiasm. 

 

“Who wants to learn a turn today?” Sora asked. 

 

That was met with much more enthusiasm. 

 

“Well, I wasn’t planning on starting pirouettes with you lot until next week, but you’ve all been doing so good that I figured what the hell, we might as well try it, right?” Sora continued, beaming at them all like he was proud of them. He probably was. 

 

Sora demonstrated for the class, showing them the prep positions first before having them copy him. It felt gangly and awkward to Riku, who really just wasn’t getting the hang of this dance thing, even two months in. 

 

“Okay, so let’s start with a quarter turn, yeah?” Sora suggested. “Ready?” 

 

He glanced around the room with the mirror to catch everyone’s nods. 

 

“5.. 6… 5, 6, 7, 8!” 

 

Riku spun far too fast and nearly fell over in the process, but he was, thankfully, not the only one. Still, Sora was clapping like they’d just put on the best ballet he’d ever seen, beaming at them.

 

“That was great, guys!” he gushed, clasping his hands together. “Let’s try another one, yeah?”

 

Riku managed to catch his eye in the mirror before the next turn. Sora’s smile widened and he winked as he called out the numbers.

 

* * *

 

 

Besides the dance classes, ignoring law school applications, and trying to beat Roxas in Smash, Riku still, albeit surprisingly, had other things going on in his life. To be honest, he had  kind of hoped that real life would halt to a stop when he realized that he was in the storybook love phase of life, but unfortunately that didn’t seem to be the case. He couldn’t remember a single teen romance novel where the main character still had to do  _ homework _ for more than a line or two (and he’d read enough of them to know), but to his dismay, life continued. 

 

On the bright side, he at least had Kairi to do homework with. She’d asked if he wanted to meet at their favorite coffeeshop, claiming it felt like it had been forever since she’d seen him. To be fair, Riku could count on one hand the number of times they’d hung out one on one since the beginning of the semester and, honestly, he kind of missed it, so he’d agreed instantly. 

 

Still, that didn’t mean he actually wanted to get any work done. 

 

Thankfully, Kairi seemed to sense his lack of motivation in the way he’d groaned at the sight of his essay outline and hadn’t shut up since then.  

 

As he sipped on his iced coffee, she was going on about this new band Axel had introduced her to. He was happy to just listen as she talked at him. 

 

They were sat in the corner of the store, tucked away from the main hustle and bustle of the other customers. It was one of Riku’s favorite spots and always had been since they’d discovered it freshman year. It was quaint, aesthetic in the way that he  _ did _ read about in romance novels. Except, he was here with his best friend instead of on a cute date, but he supposed that that still met most of the criteria for ‘cheesy moments that could fit in a romcom.’ He really needed to bring Sora here sometime. He- 

 

“Hey. Helloooooo? Earth to Riku?” 

 

He glanced up to where Kairi was waving in front of his face, her tone annoyed but a smile on her face. 

 

“Sorry,” he said, running a hand through his hair as he tried to snap himself back to reality. “I’m just out of it.” 

 

“Mhmm.” She was smiling in the way only she could, like she knew something he didn’t, something she absolutely wasn’t going to tell him. 

 

“What?” He asked, even though he knew it was pointless. 

 

“Nothing,” she said, taking a long sip of her tea. 

 

He glared at her, but she only laughed. 

 

“Say,” she said after a moment, “How’s the grad school search going?” 

 

Riku tried not to cringe to obviously. “It’s… going?” 

 

She raised an eyebrow at him. 

 

“I haven’t applied anywhere yet,” he admitted, staring at a painting over her right shoulder, deliberately not meeting her eyes. 

 

When he finally looked back at her, he was expecting to see disappointment staring back at him. After all, this was the next step in his life and he was avoiding it like the plague. At this point, he was going to miss the deadline for all of the “good schools” that his father wanted him to go to and completely screw his future up. Kairi had always been supportive of him, whether he’d been accepting of his path or not, so he didn’t think she’d be happy about him sabotaging himself. 

 

Instead, Kairi was beaming at him like he’d just won the lottery. 

 

“What?” he asked, even more confused this time. 

 

“Nothing!” she quickly said again. 

 

“Kairi.” 

 

“I’m just happy for you, is all,” she said, shrugging.

 

“What?” 

 

“I mean, law school isn’t really for you, is it?” she simply said. 

 

“Can we talk about something else?” he asked, trying to ignore the sudden dryness in his mouth. Trying to ignore it like he did every other discomfort in his life. 

 

If he didn’t think about it, it would almost be like it wasn’t there. 

 

She looked confused, but nodded in agreement. 

 

For a moment, an awkward pause hung between them. Riku didn’t know what to say to keep the conversation moving and it didn’t seem like Kairi had any clue, either. 

 

Thankfully, she was quicker than he was.

 

“Did I tell you about the flowers Xion gave me at work the other day?” she asked. 

 

Riku felt a little bit like a bad friend in this moment because he, for the life of him, could not remember who exactly Xion was. “Who?”

 

Kairi stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

 

“Really, Riku?” She asked, gaping. “Xion? Cute girl I work with who asked me out with cute flowers Xion?” 

 

“Oh, that’s her name?” Riku asked.

 

“Riku!” She groaned, exasperated. “Yes it’s Xion.”

 

“Then no. No you haven’t.”  

 

“Oh my  _ god, _ Riku, they were so pretty! Here, let me show you the picture I took, it’s buried in my phone somewhere, let me just…” 

 

He happily listened to her gush about new love and tried to ignore the pit that was growing in his stomach.  

 

 

* * *

  
  


Halloween was something of an annual disaster for Radiant Gardens University. Every year, for as long as anyone could remember, the college town turned into one big party. The police would be out in full force, but somehow, no one who actually attended the college ever found themselves behind bars for the various crimes of underage drinking, disorderly conduct, or carrying open containers. For the most part, it was usually students who came in from Traverse Town State that usually found themselves in the slammer, a source of great pride for the student body of RGU.

 

Riku hadn’t been much of a partier since the middle of his sophomore year or so, having mellowed out after a severe case of post breakup alcohol poisoning that had very nearly sent him to get his stomach pumped. However, there was no way he was going to miss Halloween, lifestyle changes or not. Especially when he’d gotten in not one, not two, but three fights with his father this week about the law school shaped hole he was digging himself into. Not that that was going to be enough to ruin this weekend for him, but it did motivate him to drink himself into oblivion. 

 

This year, he’d even dressed up. It was Sora’s fault, really- and where was Sora? Riku was pretty sure he was looking for him, but couldn’t think straight enough to figure out  _ where _ he should be looking- because he’d asked Riku to join in on the group costume and it wasn’t like Riku could just say no to that. The group costume had ended up being fairly fun, actually, and included far more people than originally planned. Riku had thought it was just going to be him, Roxas, Sora, and Kairi, but Roxas had told Ventus, and he’d wanted to join in with Vanitas, and then Aqua and her boyfriend Terra had gotten involved, and so had Kairi’s new girlfriend that she’d told him about at the coffeeshop, Xion, and her friend Namine, who it turned out where the same Namine and Xion that Sora lived with. It was almost enough to give Riku a headache by the time Halloween rolled around. 

 

The theme they’d chosen was Disney characters, since it was the only thing they could agree on. Riku hadn’t particularly cared either way, but he did have to admit that it was a good idea, considering he got to see Aqua and Terra dressed as Cinderella and Prince Charming, with Terra as Cinderella. 

 

The entire gang had donned their Disney costumes merely three hours ago and Riku had to admit that the group photos they’d all taken before going out were pretty damn neat. 

 

It helped that he and Sora were standing next to each other in every one of them.

 

Now, let’s be clear that Riku wasn’t drunk. He  _ wasn’t _ , he told himself as he half smacked into the doorframe trying to get to the bathroom

 

As he stumbled to the sink and fumbled with the knobs to try and turn the water on, he wanted to pull his phone out and look at them again. Some of the photos were cute, some of them goofy, and one that Kairi had insisted on taking for her Kingstagram that they called the “dumb thots” photo. It was actually a really good photo, but the problem was, Sora looked too damn good dressed as some sort of male version of the princess from Atlantis -fake blue tattoos covering his body and all- and the way he was smirking at the camera was really making Riku feel things he didn’t want to think about. He was just lucky that Sora had decided to go with the white tunic instead of just white pants because he really, really wouldn’t have been able to handle a shirtless Sora after seven shots of rum. 

 

He finally figured out how to get the water to turn on and started to wash his hands, only to realize that he didn’t know where the soap was. His eyes went in and out of focus several times before he could make it out on the counter, swiping at it with one hand. 

 

After that, it was a much easier time getting out of the bathroom, since he’d forgotten to lock the door behind him. He took a moment to be extra thankful that no one else had had to pee while he was in there. 

 

“You!” he heard as he fell out of the bathroom. 

 

He turned to see a girl marching towards him down the hall. He recognized her solely for the fact that he’d seen her early at the party, but beyond that, he had no idea why she was suddenly cornering him by the bathroom. 

 

“Are you with the Disney group?” She asked, staring up at him. He felt a little trapped, to be honest, like he was being interrogated. 

 

“Uh, yeah?” He repeated. 

 

“And you’re supposed to be Milo, right?” She asked. She hadn’t blinked once yet and it was kind of unnerving. 

 

He nodded. 

 

The next thing he was really aware of was the girl gushing over his costume in the kitchen, telling him all about how cute he and his boyfriend looked together. He couldn’t remember how they got there.   
  


“My what?” Riku slurred out, frowning at her. 

 

“Your boyfriend? You know? The guy you came here with dressed as Kida?” She clarified, frowning at him.

 

“Oh, he’s not-” Riku started. 

 

But she interrupted before he could protest too much. “He should be! He wouldn’t shut up about how he’s been trying to find you all night, which was just ridiculous, considering you’ve only been here for, like, an hour. He was practically gushing about you and your gorgeous long hair.” 

 

The last part was a little mocking, but Riku blinked at her, slow and confused. 

 

“He said that?” 

 

She groaned at him, exasperated. “That and so much more. And that was after my friend tried hitting on him. It was so awkward.” 

 

Riku felt a twinge of jealousy at that, except it wasn’t a twinge. It was more like a freight train hitting him at full speed. 

 

“He wouldn’t even listen to him! It was really sweet, actually. Are you sure you guys aren’t dating?”

 

“I, uh-” 

 

“Well, whatever, I gotta run and find my own dumb thot. It was nice meeting you, Riku!” 

 

As she disappeared into the crowd, Riku thought about how he was pretty sure he’d never told her his name.

 

“Riku!” 

 

Riku whipped around, far too fast, nearly face-planting as he caught sight of Sora. Even with his hair spray colored white and covered in blue markings, he recognized him easily. 

 

He rushed over, grabbing onto Riku’s arm like it was the only thing in the world that could keep him steady. 

 

“There you are!” He gushed, resting his head on Riku’s shoulder. Riku couldn’t help but notice that his breath smelled like Fireball and, god, did he want to taste it. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” 

 

“I’ve been looking for you, too,” Riku admitted. 

 

Sora laughed at that, far too loud. “I guess we just suck at searching, then. But I’m glad I found you.” 

 

Riku’s eyes widened a little, but Sora didn’t seem to notice. “You are?”

 

“Of course, you goof! I need someone to come dance with me and you’re it, baby!” Sora said, suddenly unattaching himself from Riku’s arm and grabbing his hand. Riku’s brain wasn’t sure what to fixate on first: the fact that Sora was holding his hand or that he’d just called him baby. 

 

Before he could decide, he was standing in the middle of the living room, feeling the bass pounding under his feet and Sora starting to move in front of him.

 

He’d seen Sora dance before, obviously. He’d seen him plié and leap, had seen him do triple turns and kick higher than Riku’s head gracefully. Technically, he’d even danced with him before, sort of, as Sora had instructed him on how to move, pushing his shoulders back slightly to fix his posture or tilting his chin up to remind him to never, ever look to the ground as he danced. 

 

But none of that could have prepared him for this moment. 

 

The thing about ballet was, it was controlled. Every movement, every dip and turn, was calculated down to the millisecond, with no room for mistakes. It was beautiful, but it was rigid and unforgiving, even with a teacher as caring as Sora. It was the complete opposite of how Sora was moving to the music now, carefree and absolutely lawless. He should  _ not _ be allowed to swing his hips like that with Riku standing so close.

 

He didn’t even realize how long he’d been staring until Sora started laughing. 

 

“Don’t just stand there!” He squealed, his laugh ringing over the thumping music. 

 

He reached out, grabbing both of Riku’s hands with one of his own, gently tugging on them to try and get Riku to move in time with the beat. 

 

“You know I can’t dance,” Riku protested, even as his feet started to follow the music. 

 

“Not with that attitude, you can’t!” Sora shot back, moving the both of them now. Riku couldn’t help but follow along as he twisted and turned, pulling them closer together by their hands then pushing him away again. 

 

It was too much and not enough all at once. Riku’s hands burned where Sora held him, his skin erupted with fire every time they pressed together, but it was over far too quickly as Sora would move back, stepping in and out as the song played. 

 

The song ended and Riku thought it might take their dance with it, but another one began to blast through the speakers, and Sora kept dancing. Riku was pretty sure his feet were hurting already, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

 

Halfway into the song, Sora decided it was time to call it quits. Riku couldn’t fathom why- he spent his entire life dancing, surely a song and a half hadn’t worn him out- but before he had time to ask, Sora was dragging him outside. 

 

The night was in full swing around them in the backyard. It was much quieter, but they could still hear the music coming from the party behind them. It was creating an odd mix with the sounds of another song coming from another party across the block, but it wasn’t terrible. The moon was shining high in the sky and somewhere out, there was a frog croaking. 

 

Even for the end of October, it was obnoxiously chilly. Riku was glad that he’d gone for the outfit that included a coat as a strong gust of wind rushed past them. 

 

There was a weird sound behind him and Riku glanced over, realizing that it was the sound of Sora’s teeth chattering. 

 

“Jeez, I didn’t realize how cold it was. Can you tell I’m an Islander?”

 

Before he could even think about what he was doing, his body moved for him, pulling off his coat. The alcohol made him clumsy, but he pulled Sora close to his side and managed to drape the coat over both their shoulders with relative success. His arm stayed around Sora’s waist because he wasn’t sure any force other than Sora himself telling him to knock it off could have moved him. 

 

Sora squeaked in surprise at this, but he quickly relaxed against Riku’s side, leaning his head against his arm. 

 

“Thanks,” his voice was soft, much softer than Riku was used to and it made his heart race. 

 

“No problem,” Riku answered, just as quiet. 

 

Sora’s eyes were trained upwards, so Riku followed them to see the stars above them. 

 

“They’re beautiful,” Sora murmured, blinking slowly.

 

Riku glanced down at him and thought that the stars might be beautiful, but they were second best to the one resting against him now. “They are.” 

 

“Do you ever think about what’s up there with them?” Sora asked. “Like, there could be entire worlds up there that we just don’t know about.” 

 

“How much did you drink?” Riku countered, not entirely sure his brain could handle the existential crisis Sora’s question threatened to give him right now.    
  


“A lot,” Sora admitted, pulling away slightly to grin up at him. “But that’s not the point.” 

 

“I think it is,” Riku said, shaking his head. Strands of hair fell into his face, escaping the messy ponytail his hair had become over the course of the night. 

 

Sora moved quickly, pushing Riku’s hair out of his eyes. His fingers were warm against Riku’s forehead and were gone just as quickly. Riku blinked in surprise, wanting nothing more in the moment than to feel Sora’s fingers in his hair again. 

 

“Thanks,” he croaked. 

 

Sora’s grin had morphed into something softer, something Riku couldn’t quite read. It was still a smile, a beautiful, beautiful smile, but the joy behind it was replaced with something different. Something sweet and unsure. Riku was definitely reading too much into it, but he couldn’t help it. 

 

He looked away for a moment and when he looked back, Sora was staring at his mouth. 

 

Riku’s breath caught in his throat. 

 

They were sitting so close together in order to share the coat. Sora’s side was pressed against his and with the way their heads were both turned, it would take nothing at all for Riku to lean in and pressed his lips against Sora’s. 

 

It was too easy, but at the same time it was impossible. There was no distance between them and a world’s worth all at once. 

 

His eyes slid close as Sora leaned in, heartbeat racing a hundred miles an hour, and-

 

“RIKU!” 

 

Both of them jerked back, startled. 

 

Riku’s head whipped to see what the disruption was, trying not to feel too cheated when he saw Axel in the door. Any other time, he’d be happy to see him running around dressed as Ariel from the Little Mermaid, but this wasn’t one of those times. 

 

“There you are,” the jackass groaned, waving them towards him. “Roxas has been looking everywhere for you. Something about something or other, I dunno, I wasn’t paying any attention. Wait, was I interrupting something?” 

 

“No,” Riku said at the same time Sora snapped, “Yes.” 

 

They looked at each other, both with similar expressions of surprise on their faces. Sora’s smile had turned into a frown. 

 

“Ooooookay, then,” Axel said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m just gonna. Go back to Roxas.” 

 

The door slid shut behind him as Riku watched, conflicted. On one hand, he should probably go see what Roxas was throwing such a fit about. On the other… 

 

“Let’s head back inside,” Sora said, standing up and shrugging out of Riku’s jacket. 

 

Riku frowned, wanting to go back to where they were before the interruption, but nodded. “Okay.”

 

Stepping back into the party was like walking into another world. He was instantly assaulted by the bright lights, flashing to the loud music. It was a matter of seconds before he lost Sora in the crowd, desperately trying to spot him again with no luck. 

 

Why did he come back inside again? 

 

Oh, right. Roxas. 

 

Riku scanned the crowd for that familiar spiky blond hair stuffed under a chef’s hat, but didn’t spot it. Maybe he was in the kitchen. He should have asked Axel, damnit. 

 

He pushed through the crowd to get to the kitchen, but couldn’t find Roxas there, either. It felt like he’d searched the entire house from top to bottom, even though it was only the first floor. Still, it took him a good twenty or thirty minutes trying to push through all the people and with getting stopped a few times by people asking about his costume. 

 

After getting incredibly frustrated with his failing search, it suddenly occurred to him that he could just text his roommate and ask where he was, something he hadn’t thought of before.

 

He pulled his phone out, seeing a bunch of messages from said roommate. Most of them looked like pure gibberish, but he could make out a solid conclusion by the end of scrolling past them: Roxas had gotten bored of the party and had taken an Uber home, and if Riku had wanted to go home with him, he needed to let him know by… about five minutes ago. 

 

_ Thanks, Roxas _ , Riku thought, trying not to get too bitter about being ditched by his best friend before midnight. 

 

“Riku!” 

 

He spun to find the source of the voice, gaze softening as he spotted Kairi coming towards him, green dress hiked up as she moved. 

 

“Hey, pipsqueak,” he greeted. 

 

She wrinkled her nose at him, frowning. “I hate that nickname.” 

 

“I know,” he said cheerfully. “What’s up?” 

 

“I can’t find Axel or Isa,” she said miserably, sighing. “Someone fell into the wall upstairs and broke most of the picture frames. I wanted to tell them before anyone else cut themselves on the glass. Whoever knocked them off just left them there for anyone to step on. It’s so rude.” 

 

“Mhmm,” Riku agreed, even though he couldn’t be bothered to give a single shit about Axel’s decorations. 

 

“There was something else I needed to tell you,” she said, lips turning into a pout as her face contorted into a face of pure concentration. 

 

“Oh?” Riku prompted. 

 

“Oh my god!” She shouted, so loud and suddenly that it made Riku jump a good two feet in the air. “Sora!” 

 

“What about Sora?” Riku asked. 

 

“We were doing shots, right, because he was in a funky mood and we couldn’t have that, and then we went upstairs because we heard a crash, right, and so we were going up to investigate it, but kept nearly falling down the stairs because we’re both stupid drunk and then-”

 

“Kairi get to the point,” Riku urged her, trying so hard not to roll his eyes. He loved her, he truly did, but she could ramble as badly as Sora when she was wasted.

 

“Sora sliced his foot open on the broken glass! I need you to help me find a bandage.” 

 

Riku suddenly felt nauseous. “And you just left him up there!?” 

 

“Somebody had to go get help!” She fired back, glaring at him. “Now come on, help me find a first aid kit.”

 

They searched with fervor, ruthlessly plowing over everything and everyone their path, but it still took them a good five minutes to find a small first aid kit shoved in the basement bathroom. 

 

Riku all but sprinted up the stairs to the second floor, blanching when he saw Sora sitting on the floor, head in his hands. There was a rather large pool of blood around his foot and Riku had to swallow back the bile that rose in the back of his throat. 

 

“Sora, we’re back!” Kairi pushed past Riku, going to their friend’s side and crouching next to him. 

 

Sora made some sort of strangled choking sound and it was then that Riku realized that he was sobbing. It must be hurting something terrible, he realized, and his heart went out to him. 

 

Riku was by his side in an instant, reaching out to grab Sora’s hands, peeling them away from his face. 

 

“Sora, breathe,” he said. 

 

“I can’t-” Sora was practically gasping for air, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’m so- I’m so screwed Riku! I can’t- I can’t, how am I supposed to dance with stitches?”

 

Riku’s face softened. Of course Sora was more worried about his dancing than the pain of slicing his foot open. It would have been irritating if it wasn’t so on brand for Sora. 

 

“Stitches don’t last forever, Sora,” Riku assured him, glancing at Kairi to try and get some help. 

 

“Yeah!” She said quickly, picking up on his hint. “And besides, it might not even need stitches!” 

 

“But auditions are coming up and I can’t- I can’t mess them up, it’ll destroy my entire career!” 

 

“No, it won’t,” Riku assured him, even though he knew fuck all about the dance world. For all he knew, missing these auditions could be the end of Sora’s career, but for his friend’s sake, he tried to pretend that he knew what he was talking about. 

 

All he really knew, though, was that Sora was scared and Riku needed to calm him down before he had a full blown panic attack. 

 

“Besides, even if you do need stitches, there’ll be other auditions. You might even like those… uh, what’s the term? The like dance group term?” He asked. 

 

“Companies,” Sora said, hiccuping. 

 

“Yeah, those. You might end up with one that’s even better,” Riku said, trying his best to put on a smile and sound encouraging. 

 

“And, really, I don’t think it’ll need stitches!” Kairi said again, looking like she was grasping for anything that might make Sora feel better. 

 

The amount of blood told Riku differently, but he nodded encouragingly anyways. “Yeah.” 

 

Sora sniffled. “Do you really think so?”

 

“Of course,” Riku lied right through his teeth, trying to go for an encouraging smile. “We’re gonna try and clean it now, okay?” 

 

Sora nodded. 

 

Riku and Kairi were, honestly, way too drunk to be trying to clean anything, let alone a wound, but they did their best with the tiny first aid kit. It took forever to get the blood to stop, but after a good ten minutes of applying pressure, it finally seemed to let up. Sora probably  _ should  _ have gone to get stitches, but none of them were thinking that far ahead now. For now, it was just a miracle to get the blood to stop. Sora watched them with wide, teary eyes, wincing hard when they cleaned the cut. 

 

It took a little longer for them to clean the rest of the blood off his foot so that they could bandage it. It was then that a light bulb went off in Riku’s head. 

 

“Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” He asked, staring Sora down. 

 

“I took them off when we got here,” Sora admitted sheepishly. “They didn’t go with my costume.” 

 

On his other side, Kairi snorted. 

 

“Figures,” Riku said, but he was smiling. 

 

Sora pouted. 

 

After a few more minutes, his foot was properly bandaged (at least, as properly as they could get it), and Kairi was pushing herself to her feet. 

 

“All right,” she said, surveying the room before looking back down at them, “I’m gonna go find Axel or Isa and let them know about the mess. Trying not to stand up too fast, Sora. You still look super pale.”

 

Sora frowned. “I won’t.” 

 

And with that, she was gone, leaving them alone again for the first time since they were outside. 

 

It couldn’t have been more than an hour since then, but it felt like an entire lifetime to Riku. 

 

Sora was still sniffling, a stray tear falling down his cheek. Riku reached over and wiped it away without thinking. 

 

“Feeling any better?” he asked. 

 

Sora nodded, slowly. “A little, yeah.” 

 

“Good,” Riku said. “Do you think you can walk?” 

 

“I probably shouldn’t put too much pressure on it,” Sora mumbled. “Don’t wanna reopen it.”

 

“Right,” he agreed. “Are you ready to head home?” 

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I’ll call you an Uber,” Riku said, taking his phone out. 

 

Sora looked like he wanted to protest, but didn’t. Instead, he told Riku his address.

 

“There’s one five minutes away,” Riku told him, clicking the button to order the ride for him. 

 

“Will you go with me?” Sora asked him suddenly.

 

It took Riku a moment to speak, but his answer was obvious. “Of course.” 

 

A smile finally broke out onto Sora’s face again. “Thanks.”

 

Silence fell over them as they waited. Riku typed out a message to Kairi to let her know that they were leaving. 

 

A minute later, Riku’s phone buzzed to let him know that their driver was arriving. 

 

He then realized that he wasn’t entirely sure Sora was going to be able to walk downstairs and out to the car. 

 

“Do you want me to carry you out?” 

 

“What?” Sora asked. It sounded a little bit like a yelp. 

 

“I mean, since you probably shouldn’t be walking on your foot, maybe I should carry you out to the car?” Riku repeated. 

 

“I- yeah- I guess so, yeah,” Sora sputtered. 

 

It was awkward, trying to figure out how to go about it, but eventually, Riku managed to get Sora onto his back piggyback style. It seemed like the easiest way at the time, but proved to be a terrible decision as they reached the stairs. Still, hearing Sora laugh every time Riku tried desperately to not drop him made it worth it. 

 

The drive to Sora’s apartment complex was an easy one, from what Riku remembered. Sitting down had brought fatigue on like a tsunami and it didn’t help that Sora was sitting right next to him like some sort of personal furnace. 

 

The driver didn’t try to talk to them, which Riku was thankful for. He was probably just as tired as they were, but tonight was definitely a good night of business for him. 

 

When they arrived, Riku left the driver a hefty tip and pulled Sora from the car, nearly knocking them both to the ground in the process.

 

Sora was yawning like his life depended on it and it quickly became contagious. 

 

And Riku was carrying him on his back again because they’d already made it this far, damnit. 

 

“What’s the number?” Riku asked, praying that they wouldn’t have to go up or down any stairs this time. 

 

“260,” Sora yawned out. “There’s an elevator.” 

 

“Thank God,” Riku said. 

 

He managed to haul Sora into the elevator with little issue, pressing the button for the second floor with his elbow. His thoughts wandered aimlessly , first going to how surprisingly dingy the building was, to chiding himself for being so judgemental and back and forth for a while until, before he had a chance to scold himself even more, the elevator doors were opening onto Sora's floor.

 

He found Sora’s apartment easily enough and, thankfully, one of the girls had left it unlocked.

 

Sora’s apartment was somehow everything he was expecting and nothing like he thought it would be at all. It was  _ tiny _ , even smaller than Riku and Roxas’ place, and three people lived there. There were photos covering the entire far wall, while paintings hung on the other three. Three doors, two on one side and one on the other, split off to what he suspected were the three bedrooms, and another open door showing the bathroom off to the side of the main room/kitchen. He could see Sora’s backpack thrown carelessly onto the couch and a blanket was bundled up next to it, giving Riku the impression that it must be a popular nap spot for the three residents. 

 

“Welcome to my humble abode,” Sora mumbled into his shoulder. “It’s not much, but it’s home.” 

 

“I like it,” Riku told him. “It’s very you.” 

 

“So it’s small,” Sora snorted. 

 

“That’s not what I meant,” Riku frowned, but Sora couldn’t see it. “Which room is yours?”

 

“The one on the right,” Sora told him, helpfully pointing over Riku’s shoulder at the single door on the right half of the room. 

 

Riku pushed the door open with his foot, blinking as his eyes tried to adjust to the darkness in the room. He couldn’t reach for the lightswitch with his grip on Sora like this, so he just walked into the room until he bumped into the bed. 

 

“One, two, three,” he warned, before turning and dropping Sora right down onto the bed. 

 

Sora squaked indignantly and Riku could hear him flailing as he hit the bed. “Gee, thanks.” 

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

A beat passed in which they were both silent. Riku turned back to the light streaming through the open door. “I guess I ought to head home. Good night, Sora.” 

 

Sora didn’t say anything and, honestly, it really wouldn’t have surprised Riku if he’d just fallen asleep in that short amount of time. He assumed that was the case and started for the door, only to be proven wrong when Sora’s voice called out, stopping him in his tracks. 

 

“Hey, Riku?”

 

Riku turned to face him. Sora was sitting up and staring at him with those damning wide eyes and a cautious look on his face. The light silhouetted him like a full body halo, Riku’s shadow blocking the light from hitting his face or body. He blinked, hit with a sudden wave of indescribable feeling. He couldn’t explain it, but he wanted to stare at Sora like this forever.

 

But he couldn’t do that without being a complete creep, so instead he said, “Yeah?” 

 

Sora wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Stay?”

 

Time seemed to freeze around him. Every muscle in Riku’s body seemed to tense as he stared at Sora. 

 

Slowly, though, he relaxed. If Sora wanted him to stay, then he would absolutely stay. “Sure.” 

 

Riku made his way back to the bed and sat on it, slowly. He knew it was physically impossible for him to be sober already, but his head had never felt clearer. 

 

Sora’s yawn broke the spell on him and he started breathing properly again. 

 

“Thanks, Riku,” Sora said. Riku loved the way his name sounded coming off his lips, like it was some sort of melodramatic love story. “For fixing my foot and… this.” 

 

“Thank me for your foot if it hasn’t fallen off by morning,” Riku said.

 

Sora turned to stare at him, eyes widening. “Do you think it would really-”

 

“No,” Riku cut him off before Sora could work himself into a fit. “No it really wouldn’t. Now stop worrying about it and go to sleep, okay?”

 

As if to prove his point, he laid down on his side, still facing towards Sora. Sora frowned, not entirely convinced he guessed, but followed suit, facing Riku. They were only inches apart, but it felt like a canyon was between them, one they just couldn’t cross yet. It was the same feeling of impossibility that he’d felt at the party, when he’d nearly kissed Sora before Axel had interrupted. 

 

“Hey, Riku?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“What’s your favorite color?”

 

“What?” 

 

“You heard me. I don’t know what your favorite color is,” Sora repeated. In the minimal light flooding from the doorway, Riku could just barely make out his frown. “I feel like I should. After all, you’re one of my best friends.”

 

Riku’s face felt like it was on fire. He knew that it was irrational, weird even, to consider themselves best friends after such a short time, but he had been feeling the same way Sora had. There had been some sort of near instant connection that just… clicked between them, like they’d been meant to know each other their entire lives. Something like destiny. 

 

“You’re one of my best friends, too,” he said.

 

Sora smiled at that. 

 

“And my favorite color is blue. What’s yours?” Riku asked, even thought he was pretty sure Sora had told him before. Some kind of sea-green, he remembered. 

 

Sora thought about it for a moment, deep in concentration, as if his answer was the most important thing he could tell Riku. “Green, I think. Maybe orange.” 

 

“You think?”

 

“Would you believe I’ve never really thought about it?” 

 

Riku laughed softly. “I guess there are more important things to think about.” 

 

“Exactly!” 

 

“Where are you from?” Sora continued. 

 

“What is this, twenty questions?” Riku countered.

 

Sora stuck his tongue out at him, pouting. “Maybe.”

 

“Well-”

 

“It’s just that… I don’t know. I feel like I’ve known you forever, but I also feel like I don’t really know anything about you at all? Does that make sense?” Sora asked, accidentally cutting Riku off this time. 

 

Riku nodded slowly. “Yeah. It does. And I’m from Destiny Islands. Well, kind of. We moved away when I was, like, eight, but I always think of it as home, I guess.” 

 

He closed his eyes, resting them for a moment. When he opened them again, Sora was gaping at him. 

 

“What?” 

 

“Dude, that’s nuts! I’m from Destiny Islands, too!” Sora gushed, suddenly seeming more awake than he had been in the last hour. 

 

“What? No way. What’re the odds?” 

 

“Little to fucking none! You know, I haven’t met a single other person on this campus- other than Axel and Isa, of course- so far from Destiny until you.”

 

“Because no one ever leaves the islands,” Riku groaned, repeating the same thing that had been said to his father a hundred times when they’d first started the move. 

 

“Exactly! God, you should have seen the looks on everyone’s faces when I decided to come here for school,” Sora said, sighing in some form exasperation. 

 

“I can imagine,” Riku said, pulling a face of mock excitement and surprise. 

 

He felt really stupid doing it, but it made Sora laugh, so it was worth it. “Nailed it. Maybe you should switch careers and be an actor.” 

 

Riku forced a laugh at that, trying not to let himself ruin the moment. Sora couldn’t know how deep the comment cut, but Riku forced himself not to think about it. 

 

“Yeah, maybe,” he said. 

 

Sora laughed again at that, but it didn’t sound as natural as it had before. Slowly, it petered off, until silence surrounded them again. 

 

“Good night, Riku,” Sora said, finally closing his eyes. 

 

Riku’s arms ached with the need to hold him in them, but he felt as stiff as a board. He kept his arms tucked into his side, trying to ignore the urge. 

 

A few minutes passed that he spent squeezing his eyes shut and trying to force himself to sleep before he heard Sora sigh loudly. 

 

“Riku?” 

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“Fucking come here,” he said, practically grabbing onto the front of Riku’s shirt as he spoke and pulling him closer. 

 

On instinct, Riku’s arms went around Sora’s torso as Sora pressed his face into Riku’s chest, burying himself somewhere in all of the costume’s fabric. 

 

Riku couldn’t help but smile at the warmth pressed against him. He knew he would probably feel embarrassed in the morning, but for now, he just felt happy. Peaceful, even, for the first time in what felt like ages. 

 

His breathing finally started to even out as he absentmindedly traced small patterns onto Sora’s back, until the world finally faded to black around him and sleep took him, blessing him with dreams of digging up bones in the desert and traveling to watch a boyfriend perform in the ballet. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case u were wondering, roxas is linguini from ratatouille. i don't make the rules
> 
> anyways thank u so much for reading!!!!!!!! if u enjoyed, pls pls pls kudos and comment!! it really keeps me going and everyone has been so kind and sweet and just aH thank u all i love u all u can share my firstborn i aPPRECIATE IT SO MUCH
> 
> the next (and possibly final???) chapter probably won't be up as quickly, bc i've writer the last 2 chapters nonstop for the last two weeks and i lowkey need to Chill but who knows ! we'll see !
> 
> have a great night everyone!!
> 
> [twitter!!](https://twitter.com/vanitashours)   
>  [curious cat!!](https://curiouscat.me/owochimuwu)


	3. there isn't anywhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!!! thanks as always to the amazing soup and kristin for their time and energy with this fic!
> 
> so, u might notice that the chapter count went up,,,, this WAS supposed to be the last chapter, but i was just,,, on some shit this week and we took a detour on the pain train,,,

Everything seemed to fall apart not long after Riku got to fall asleep with Sora in his arms. There was no warning, no sign, just the sudden collapse of everything, all at once. 

 

It started with the Sunday after Halloween, Riku woke up alone in Sora’s bed, sunlight streaming through the window over his headboard. With it came Sora in the kitchen, cooking pancakes and limping and smiling like everything was just fine. 

 

Riku couldn’t understand how Sora didn’t even have half the hangover that he did, which was just not fair. His own head was pounding enough that he didn’t want to think about how Sora was ignoring both his injured foot and the fact that they’d just spent the entire night cuddling in their sleep. But, if Sora didn’t want to talk about it, then that was perfectly fine with Riku. Ignoring important things was one of Riku’s specialities, after all. 

 

So they didn’t talk about it, at all, and Riku thought that that might be the end of it. To be honest, he was a little disappointed, but he didn’t know why. If they talked about it, he’d probably end up doing something stupid like confessing his feelings to Sora or worse, pretending they didn’t exist. Neither of those seemed like good options, but somehow, he was dismayed anyways. He swallowed the disappointment with his pancakes, wondering if it was his thoughts or the hangover that was making him feel so nauseous. 

 

The Monday after Halloween was, however, when things really started to go to shit. The beginning of the end, in a way. It gave him a false blessing; a cancelled ballet class, the first one of the semester. The email said that it was because Sora thought they all deserved a break after working so hard over the semester, but Riku was pretty sure it was because he had an appointment to get his foot checked out at the doctor’s. 

 

Turns out, he was right. Riku decided that he deserved a nap during the time that class was cancelled, but when he finally blinked his eyes open and checked his phone at five pm, he saw that he had three new messages from Sora. 

 

The first one was a selfie of Sora, one that was, unfairly, too cute for Riku to have to see less than five minutes from waking up. Sora was grinning at the camera and giving a thumbs up, with the caption  _ “guess who reopened their cut right before going to the doctor’s lmoa”  _

 

_ “*lmao”  _ was the next message, followed by a final, “ _ ten stitches bb let’s GO” _

 

Riku winced at the last one. He had only gotten stitches once before, but he didn’t remember it as a happy experience whatsoever. 

 

“ _ ouch,” _ he typed back. Almost instantly, the three dots appeared to show that Sora was typing. 

 

“ _ yeah it HURT lmao! but im cleared to start dancing again, so that’s good :D” _

 

Something about that didn’t feel quite right to Riku, but he shrugged it off. He didn’t think you were supposed to do heavy exercise on an injury that bad, but if Sora’s doctor said it was okay, then it must be. 

 

_ “no more cancelled class? lame,” _ he sent back.

 

He rolled over as he waited for Sora’s response, beginning to contemplate getting up. He was fairly certain that it was his turn to cook dinner, so he should start that soon if he didn’t want to deal with a hangry Roxas. Roxas claimed that he never got hangry, but he turned into a real bitch if dinner wasn’t ready by 5:30, so Riku thought he was just full of shit. Riku wasn’t much better, but at least he kept his annoyance to himself (most of the time, anyways). 

 

Finally, after no response from Sora, he dragged himself out of bed and into the kitchen. He considered inviting Sora over for dinner, but stopped when he saw the shaken look on Roxas’ face. 

 

His roommate was sitting at the counter, staring at his phone. If Riku looked hard enough, he could see that Roxas was shaking ever so slightly. It was unnerving, if Riku was being honest. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d seen Roxas looking… scared.    
  
“Hey,” Riku said as he approached to avoid startling him, “What’s… what’s up?” 

 

Roxas turned and looked at him, eyes glossy. It was like he was seeing Riku and looking through him at the same time. 

 

Selfishly, Riku felt panicked. Roxas was clearly upset about something, but Riku was never good at comforting people. He would try, of course, but somehow he only ever seemed to make things worse. So, he wished that Roxas would snap out of whatever was worrying him and go back to being his moody self.

 

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were home,” Roxas said. 

 

“Sorry, class was cancelled so I took a nap,” Riku replied, sitting down on the other stool next to him. 

 

“Oh,” Roxas said again. Nothing more, nothing less. It felt so wrong. 

 

“Is… everything okay?” Riku asked. 

 

“I’m just waiting on a Lyft,” Roxas murmured, so quiet that Riku could barely hear him. “I didn’t think you were home or else I would have just asked for a ride.”

 

Roxas, who rode his skateboard literally everywhere, had never asked Riku for a ride before, despite the fact that Riku’s car actually went above fifteen miles per hour whereas the board did not. What the fuck was going on? 

 

“Where to?” He asked. Getting information out of Roxas right now felt like pulling teeth, but it seemed like something he should do in the name of being a good friend. 

 

“The hospital,” Roxas answered, looking down to stare at his phone again. “Family emergency, I guess.”

 

“Oh shit,” Riku said, unintelligently, because, really, what else could he say? “Family emergency?” 

 

Roxas nodded. “I got a call. Said to get to the hospital as quickly as I could. Oh- my ride’s here.” 

 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you anyways?” Riku asked. It sounded like the least he could do, really. 

 

Roxas shook his head. “Thanks, but it’s fine. The driver’s already here, I’d feel bad sending him away now.”

 

“Okay.” Riku wished he was better at this. 

 

Roxas half jumped and half fell off the chair. Riku wasn’t entirely sure he could trust him to make it all the way down the stairs and out of the building on his own, but he wasn’t sure that he could stop him, either.

 

“I hope everything’s okay,” he said. It sounded wrong and lame, echoing in his ears. 

 

Thankfully, Roxas cracked the smallest of smiles. Riku’s attempts at comforting him must truly suck, but it seemed like he appreciated them at anyways. “Thanks. Me too.” 

 

“Keep me updated?” 

 

“Mhmm.”

 

And with that, Roxas was gone, leaving only the slamming of the door to fill the apartment in his wake. 

 

Riku stared at the door for a good three minutes, unsure of what to do now. He figured that he should have probably offered to go with Roxas, anyways, ride or no ride. He knew that Roxas probably didn’t consider him his best friend, necessarily, but you can only live with someone for so long before you know them as well as you know yourself. They’d reached that a good year ago, Riku thought, so they were definitely close friends, at least. So maybe having a friend at his side might have helped in calming Roxas down. 

 

He probably would have declined the offer, though, Riku reasoned. It wasn’t like Roxas to show any weakness, after all, and he was probably already uncomfortable with how stressed out Riku had just witnessed him being. So, really, there wasn’t much Riku could do to help him out. 

 

Riku decided to just invite Sora over for dinner, after all, because he didn’t know what else to do. 

 

Sora texted him back almost immediately, saying that he’d be over as quickly as he could. Riku let out a sigh of relief. If nothing else, he could ask Sora for advice on how to proceed with Roxas. Sora was much better at being comforting than he was. He was compassion embodied, kindness personified. He’d know what to say, what to do to help. 

 

Speaking of, there was still no word from Roxas. Riku supposed that that wasn’t strange; if traffic was bad, there was a good chance he wouldn’t have even made it to the hospital yet. Still, Riku worried, and hoped that everything was going to be okay. He wasn’t even sure it was his place to worry, but hey, he was going to worry anyways. 

 

There was a knock on his door not much after. 

 

“It’s open!” Riku called out, because Roxas never remembered to lock the door when he left. 

 

Sora waltzed in, except he didn’t, not really. He stumbled in with a crutch under one arm, grinning like a madman as he nearly slipped and ate shit off the floor. 

 

“Hey, Riku!” he greeted, beaming for, as far as Riku could tell, no reason in particular. 

 

“Hey, Sora,” Riku said, practically jumping on his feet. “Do you need help?” 

 

Sora waved him off. “Nah, but thanks! Doc said I should just use it for the next few days when my foot hurts, but it’s just a precaution. Other than that, all good to go!”

 

Riku wasn’t sure why Sora was reminding him of all of this, but he nodded anyways. “That’s good. I was… worried.” 

 

It sounded better than admitting that he’d been napping the entire time. 

 

Sora practically threw himself onto the couch, single crutch disregarded on the floor beside him. Riku followed suit, coming to sit next to him without thinking about it. 

 

“I’m more worried that I bled all over Axel and Isa’s nice photos,” Sora moaned. “I haven’t heard anything from either of them yet, but I’d feel so bad!”

 

Riku shrugged. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t break the glass, at least. And they probably weren’t even that great.” 

 

Sora’s snort was loud and obnoxious, but Riku found himself loving it. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

 

“It was just unlucky that you just had to go investigate the noise.”

 

Sora stuck his tongue out, frowning. “Normally I’m very lucky. This is bullshit.” 

 

Riku couldn’t help but laugh at that. The idea that Sora was just naturally lucky didn’t seem very far fetched at all. There were a lot of things about Sora that seemed too good to be true, the list just kept getting longer. 

 

“So, what do you want for dinner?” Riku asked. His cooking skills were a little lacking, but he had invited Sora over for a meal, so a meal he would provide. 

 

Sora thought about it for a moment. “How about grilled cheese?”

 

Riku nodded. Thankfully, he’d mastered the art of grilled cheese young. “I can do that.”

 

Sora continued to look thoughtful for a few minutes. “I probably shouldn’t be eating so much carbs and dairy so close to an audition, but oh well. It won’t kill me.”

 

“An audition?” Riku repeated. His eyes went straight to Sora’s bandaged foot. 

 

Sora either noticed or was simply reading Riku’s mind. Both seemed possible with him. “Yeah! On Thursday! This is my  _ dream _ company, and they called yesterday to set it up! Thursday was the only day they could see me.” 

 

“Are you sure you’re good to dance on your foot?” Riku asked. Something wavered in Sora’s smile, but he didn’t comment on it. In retrospect, he would wish that he’d pushed the thought farther. 

 

“Yeah! Doctor said so, remember?” Sora assured him. 

 

Riku had the feeling that Sora’s doctor was full of shit, but again, didn’t want to argue. Still, he couldn’t stop the frown from tugging at his lips. He wasn’t entirely sure that he believed Sora right now, either. 

 

Sora could tell, though, and shifted his body to face Riku. He reached out, pinching Riku’s cheeks and causing Riku to nearly jump in surprise as Sora tugged at his face, pulling his frown up. 

 

“Stop frowning and trust me,” Sora said, but there was something off about his own smile. He seemed so genuine that Riku could almost pretend that it wasn’t there. 

 

Riku hesitated before he swatted Sora’s hands away from his face. “Fine. But only if you promise to be careful.” 

 

“I will be! I’m always careful.”

 

That was a load of shit, but Riku accepted it anyways. “Well, come on, then. Let’s make dinner.” 

 

He heaved himself off the sofa, pausing to see if Sora needed help grabbing his single crutch or not. Sora seemed to forget it was there, though, and happily got to his feet without it, following Riku to the kitchen. He hopped back onto the counter, which Riku had started to think of as Sora’s spot at some point after he started coming over. There was something so mundane about Sora sitting on the counter and watching him cook, but it was something that Riku loved. 

 

As he started to gather the few but necessary ingredients for grilled cheese, Sora swung his legs, lost in thought. 

 

“Hey, Riku?” 

 

“Hmm?” 

 

“Are you really going to go to law school next year?” Sora asked. 

 

Riku froze without meaning to, just an inch away from wrapping his hand around the butter. He took a deep breath and grabbed it, closing the fridge door. Still, he wouldn’t meet Sora’s eyes. “I don’t know.” 

 

Sora clearly didn’t like his answer. “But you hate law.” 

 

“I do,” Riku admitted, quietly. He turned the stove on before digging through his cupboards to find a pan. 

 

“So you should find something you do love,” Sora said, as if it was just that easy. 

 

For him, maybe it was. From what he’d told Riku, Sora’s mom had always been supportive of his dance career. He probably just couldn’t wrap his head around how different their experiences were. Riku couldn’t just drop everything and follow his dreams. His father would surely disown him and, really, that was the best case scenario. But Sora probably just  _ couldn’t _ wrap his head around  _ that _ . 

 

Riku kind of wanted to hate him for that. But he couldn’t.

 

“You like paleontology,” Sora continued. Riku swallowed, hard. “At least, you seem to whenever we talk about it. And I definitely wouldn’t be passing the class if it weren’t for you.”

 

Riku smeared the butter on the pan, staring at it intently, like it held all of the universe’s secrets. It was better than trying to look at Sora and have this conversation right now. Riku couldn’t trust himself to not listen to his idealism if he had to face it head on. 

 

“I don’t know,” he simply said again. 

 

He didn’t have to look to know that Sora was frowning at him. 

 

Still, Sora seemed to get the hint that Riku didn’t want to talk about this and would continue to ignore it for as long as he possibly could. Or maybe he just felt bad and wanted to change the conversation.

 

“Where’s Roxas?” he asked. 

 

Oh, yeah. Riku pulled his phone out to check for updates, but his roommate hadn’t left him a single message yet. That was kind of worrying, but Riku still felt like it wasn’t his place to stress about it. Maybe he was just overthinking it too much.

 

“Hospital,” Riku answered. 

 

Sora’s loud, “What!?” made him realize that he probably should have explained that better.

 

“Is he okay?” Sora demanded. Riku could feel his stare on the back of his head and turned to face Sora after throwing the bread slices onto the pan.

 

“He’s fine. He just took off a little bit before you got here, actually. Said there was some kind of family emergency,” Riku explained. 

 

That seemed to ease Sora’s worries a little bit. Still, he said, “I hope everything’s okay,” because what else was there to say? 

 

Riku nodded. “He said he’d text me, but he kind of sucks at texting, so I’m sure he’ll let me know by tomorrow what’s up.” 

 

Sora thought on that for a moment. “Sounds like you.”

 

“What?” 

 

“Terrible at texting.” 

 

“I am not!” 

 

“Are too!”

 

“Did you really just ‘are too’ me?” Riku asked, eyes narrowing at Sora. 

 

Sora stuck up his chin with haughty righteousness that didn’t particularly suit him (but was also incredibly hot at the same time, but Riku told that half of his brain to shut the everloving fuck up), shrugging. “Perhaps.”

 

“‘Perhaps?”’ Riku echoed, amazed by Sora’s sheer bullshit. 

 

To be fair, Sora did kind of have a point. Riku was horrible at responding to messages. It was kind of his fault, but he’d never admit that aloud. 

 

“Did I stutter?” Sora asked, staring Riku down in defiance. 

 

Riku could only think about how badly he wanted to kiss him. He looked so goddamn attractive with that look in his eyes and small smirk tugging at his lips that it really just wasn’t fair. Especially not since Riku was so hopelessly in love with him. 

 

He ruined the moment before he could do anything stupid, shrugging and turning back to start throwing cheese onto the toasting bread. “Guess not.” 

 

“Hey, Riku?” 

 

He glanced up at the softness of Sora’s voice. “Yeah?”

Sora’s face was a little red, which was annoyingly cute, and his smirk had been replaced by a much more natural looking and familiar small smile. “Never mind.” 

 

Riku squinted at him. “Really, what is it?”

 

Sora looked towards the ceiling before meeting Riku’s eyes again. Riku would have given anything to know what was going on inside his head. “It’s stupid.” 

 

“So?” Riku countered. “Tell me anyways.” 

 

Sora blinked, mouth opening slightly. He clearly hadn’t been expecting that response from Riku, but his smile returned quickly. “I was just gonna say thanks.” 

 

“For what?” he asked. 

 

Sora waved a hand. “For this. Dinner, inviting me over. I appreciate it, is all.” 

 

“That’s not  _ that _ stupid,” Riku tsked, rolling his eyes. 

 

Sora stuck his tongue out at him. 

 

“But you’re welcome,” Riku said. “I’m glad you could make it. Busted foot and all.” 

 

“It’s not that busted!” Sora protested, his voice more high pitched and whiny than Riku could remember ever hearing it being. He faked a wince in reaction and Sora gently smacked him upside the head in return for it. 

 

“Ow,” Riku pouted, as if it had actually hurt. 

 

“You should probably flip the grilled cheese before it burns,” Sora said, extra cheerful now. 

 

Riku opened his mouth to protest before realizing that, yeah, if he didn’t move fast then he was definitely going to burn their sandwiches to a crisp. He shut his mouth quickly and grabbed the spatula. 

 

“You motherfucker,” he muttered. 

 

Sora simply laughed. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


It wasn’t until the next day that Riku finally heard from Roxas again. 

He’d texted him, several times actually, but had given up and fallen asleep around one in the morning, long after Sora had left for the night. Roxas had never come home, which only added to Riku’s stress levels for him, but he finally got to know what was going on when he was at lunch with Axel, Xion, and Kairi between classes the next day. 

 

They had gone to one of the shitty campus cafeterias because Xion and Kairi still lived in the dorms and had meal plans that let them swipe Axel and Riku in for free and, no matter how bad it was, free food was still free food. 

 

Riku had asked Axel and Xion if they’d heard anything from Roxas since last night, but apparently neither of them even knew that Roxas had been called to the hospital. Riku felt a little bad for telling them after the fact, but he was pretty sure that telling them had just slipped Roxas’ mind. He’d seemed pretty shaken up, after all. 

 

Axel had sent him a text to see if he was okay, but there’d been no answer. They’d tried to get on with their lunch, chatting aimlessly about the classes they still had left and what assignments they were avoiding, up until Axel’s phone finally buzzed.

 

Riku tried not to feel too petty about that fact the Roxas had texted him back before Riku. He knew it wasn’t personal, but it still stung a little bit. 

 

“Holy shit,” was all Axel said when he read the message, leaving the rest of them on the edge of their seats with anxiety. 

 

“Well, what is it?” Xion asked, the first one to break from curiosity. 

 

“There was an accident, I guess?” Axel started. Riku knew that he wasn’t the only one holding their breath at this point. “Ventus… fuck.” 

 

“Is he okay?” Kairi demanded, her voice high pitched and desperate.

 

Riku’s heart was racing. He and Ventus weren’t close, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care about him. He was Roxas’ brother, after all, and he was a good guy. 

 

“Roxas doesn’t know yet,” Axel said. The somber look on his face seemed so out of place compared to his usual facade that it made Riku’s skin crawl. “I guess he’s still in surgery, even though it’s been, like, nineteen hours almost…”

 

“Shit,” Riku said. 

 

“Nineteen hours of surgery?” Xion repeated, looking as shell shocked as Riku felt. “Holy shit.” 

 

“That’s pretty much all Roxas said,” Axel said, nodding. 

 

“We should go to the hospital,” Kairi said, as if there was no question about it. All further thoughts of going to classes and working on homework were thrown to the wind, because of course they were. Their friend needed them, it was no choice at all. “To be with him. It must be awful, waiting alone.”

 

“Vanitas is probably there,” Axel pointed out, but it was a weak argument, and they all knew it. For starters, Vanitas wasn’t exactly the comforting type. Kairi glared at him for a moment and he finally nodded. “I’ll drive.” 

 

It took them a good twenty minutes to get to the hospital during the lunch rush traffic. For a moment, they all briefly realized that Roxas might not even be there but at the hospital on the other side of town, but a text from him confirmed that they at least came to the right place. 

 

It took longer than it probably should have to find Roxas. First, they went to the ER, but it turned up nothing. The receptionist was nice enough, but she’d just started her shift and, while she knew that Roxas and co would have been moved to another waiting room while Ventus was in surgery, she didn’t know where that was exactly. Roxas wasn’t being very helpful, either, since he had stopped answering their texts. 

 

The group wandered around the hospital for a good ten minutes after that, generally lost and getting in several doctors’ ways before Axel’s phone finally chimed with a new message. 

 

“‘Sorry,” he read it out to them, “Doc came to talk to us.’ Oh, good, he sent his actual location, too. We’re on the wrong side of the building, but it shouldn’t take us too long to find it.” 

 

So they took off with renewed fervor, half walking and half jogging until they found the waiting room number that Roxas had sent them. 

 

Axel didn’t bother knocking and barged in, the other three following in his steps as quickly as they could.

 

Riku didn’t know what he was expecting, but somehow Roxas looked even worse than he could have imagined. It was obvious that he hadn’t slept since Riku had seen him last. His eyes were bright red and puffy. He was still wearing the same clothes from the night before and Riku wished he’d had the foresight to bring him something new to change into. 

 

“Hey guys,” Roxas said, his voice grating and strained. Riku wondered just how hard he’d been crying if it had destroyed his voice that much. 

 

It was Axel who got to him first, throwing his long, lanky arms around his friend and holding onto him like Roxas would disappear if he didn’t. Roxas seemed to relax a little bit into his hold, burying his face in Axel’s shoulder as the rest of them held their breath. 

 

There was a grunt that sounded something like a greeting and Riku realized that Roxas wasn’t the only one in the room.

 

Vanitas sat a few chairs down from where Roxas had been, curled up on the seats. He kind of reminded Riku of a cat, actually. He somehow managed to look even more distressed than Roxas, which Riku thought was kind of a feat, considering how Roxas was currently sniffling into his best friend’s shoulder. Vanitas’ hair was sticking every which way (which really wasn’t  _ that _ unusual, but somehow it was even worse than normal), his eyes were dry but red and equally as puffy as Roxas’.  his mouth, which usually was fixed in a pout that reminded him a little bit of sora, was now curved even deeper, past a pout and into more of a frown . 

 

“Hey, Vanitas,” Riku greeted, since Roxas seemed to be covered by Axel and Xion. He did a quick glance of the room just to confirm that there was no one else there before going to sit next to Vanitas. 

 

The emptiness in itself wasn’t all that surprising. Through Roxas, Riku had learned bits and pieces of the life he and Ventus lived, and it wasn’t exactly filled to the brim with people. Their parents were real pieces of shit, from the things Roxas let slip, and he couldn’t remember hearing about any extending family outside of them. Still, it was a little depressing that there were so few people waiting. 

 

“Hey,” Vanitas replied, clearly giving Riku a wary once over as he sat down. He didn’t seem very trusting by nature and he probably still remembered that time Riku had, rather forcefully, dragged his boyfriend off of him. Then again, he had more important things on his mind right now, so maybe that wasn’t the case.

 

“Would it be stupid to ask if you’re okay?” Riku asked. 

 

Vanitas snorted. Despite the way that he was curled in the chair, Riku could tell that he wasn’t much bigger than himself, so Riku made a note to bring him a new sweatshirt and maybe some pants, too, if he left to go get clothes for Roxas. “My boyfriend is in critical condition, Riku. Take a guess.” 

 

Riku didn’t really have anything he could say to that. So he shrugged. 

 

“Aqua and Terra went to get everyone pizza or something like that,” Vanitas said, his voice catching at the end of his sentence. Riku looked to him, but Vanitas was determined not to make eye contact; instead staring straight ahead at the wall, picking aimlessly at the sleeves of his dark sweater. “They asked if I wanted to go with them, which was weird enough, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to leave this room.”

 

Riku wasn’t entirely sure where Vanitas was going with this, but he listened anyways. Vanitas clearly needed to talk to someone after being cooped up in the waiting room for so long. Plus, Riku had asked if he was okay, it was only right that he listen to the answer. 

 

Vanitas ran a hand through his already messy hair. “I don’t know. It’s stupid, but I guess I didn’t want to go out there and see that the world’s still turning, you know? It doesn’t seem right that everyone’s going on with their lives while Ven… well, you know.” 

 

Riku shook his head. “Not really. Roxas hasn’t told us anything. But I think I get what you mean, anyways.” 

 

Vanitas finally looked at him, eternal frown ever present and deepening. It looked like he didn’t want to say anything, but he spoke anyways. “Ven was half dead by the time the paramedics even got to the scene. I guess a drunk driver swerved into his lane and hit him hard enough to send him off the road. I think there was something about a bridge. Or a tree. I don’t remember. I asked a hundred times, but I can’t make myself listen.” 

 

That was an oddly poetic way to put it for the situation they were in, but Riku nodded. It sounded like hell, really, so he couldn’t blame Vanitas for not wanting to know the details, even when sickening curiosity pawed at the back of his own mind. 

 

“There was, apparently, a lot of internal bleeding. Broken ribs, punctured lung, the works,” Vanitas continued, apparently a dam of information now that he’d broken down the floodgates. “The surgery is taking too long.” 

 

“Maybe not,” Riku said, feeling like he had to say something to reassure him, somehow. He wished he could just call Sora and let him do all the speaking, but Sora wasn’t here right now. He was. So he’d just have to do his best. “He’ll be fine.”

 

Vanitas just looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Riku didn’t think that he believed him, but there wasn’t anything else he could think to say. 

 

Thankfully, though, they were saved from any further conversation by the opening of the door. Aqua was clutching her car keys like a lifeline in one hand and holding a shopping bag in the other. Terra was standing right behind her shoulder, balancing two pizza boxes in his hands. They both looked surprised to see that the number of occupants in the room had grown. Kairi quickly rushed over to help them with it.

 

“Hey, everyone,” Aqua greeted. She was the most put together looking of the group by far; clean clothes and wet hair that suggested that she’d stopped to shower while they were out. Riku was glad to see that at least one of them was somewhat holding it together. “Sorry, we didn’t know you’d all be here or else we would have gotten more pizza.”

 

“Oh, don’t worry about us!” Kairi insisted as she took said pizzas from Terra, placing them on the table in the middle of the room. “We were at lunch when Roxas texted Axel the news, we’re not hungry at all.” 

 

“Neither am I,” Roxas pointed out, sullen and cranky. 

 

Aqua gave him a pointed look. “Too bad. You haven’t eaten all day. Shut up and eat the damn pizza.” 

 

Riku supposed that the stress was making her a little more mean than usual. Still, as he watched, her face softened, and she moved over to stroke Roxas’ hair. 

 

“I’m sorry, Rox,” she said, ruffling his hair fondly. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just worried.” 

 

“I know,” Roxas murmured, rubbing his eyes. 

 

Riku looked away, feeling suddenly like he was intruding. He glanced over at Terra, who looked just as uncomfortable as he felt. He didn’t know Terra particularly well, having only really run into him a handful of times, but he liked him well enough. He didn’t like the dark, haunted look behind Terra’s tired eyes now, but he racked it up to worry over Ventus. Other than that, Terra looked a little goofy, actually. His sweatshirt was clearly Aqua’s: bright blue, a little too tight, and boasting the design school’s logo. It would have been funny if the situation weren’t so grave. 

 

No one really had the heart for small talk after that, and with Terra and Aqua back in the room, Vanitas had clamped up and wouldn’t say much of anything to Riku. 

 

The waiting was agonizingly boring. Riku couldn’t even begin to imagine how awful it must be for the people who were actually close to Ventus. With each passing second, hope seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer. Riku tried not to think about that, though.

 

Surprisingly, or maybe not, he spent most of his time at the hospital with Vanitas. Vanitas wasn’t much of a talker, but Riku sat with him anyways, kind enough not to comment when Vanitas’ odd yellow eyes would start to water. 

 

Aqua had dug up some old board games in another waiting room to try and keep them all distracted as they waited, so eventually, Riku challenged him to a few rounds of Connect4. Vanitas had stared at him like he’d grown a second head, but had agreed, and for a few minutes of forced competition, seemed like he’d actually been having fun. 

 

Eventually, though, Riku couldn’t take it much longer. He’d only been there a few hours, but the antsiness was starting to get to him. The room was too small, too crowded, and too silent. He had to move, had to do something. 

 

He texted Sora. 

 

Sora texted him back immediately, letting him know that he was on his way. 

 

Riku stood up, stretching. “I’m going to go back to the apartment and get some fresh clothes for Roxas and Vanitas. Anybody need anything?”

 

Roxas shook his head, but Vanitas just stared at him, like he was confused that Riku had included him. It was kind of sad, actually. 

 

“I’m good,” Aqua said, but she was cut off by her own yawn. “Actually, if you could pick up some coffees, I’ll venmo you.” 

 

“It’s on me,” Riku said, waving the suggestion away. She smiled at him, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Kairi, text me everyone’s orders.”

 

The redhead in question nodded at him, giving him a thumbs up. 

 

“Anyone else?” Riku asked. 

 

When no one answered, he made his exit. 

 

It would take Sora another few minutes to get there at the earliest, but Riku went outside to wait by the parking lot anyways. The fresh air was freeing, far less suffocating than the stale air that circulated the waiting room. 

 

He breathed in as much as he could, trying to avoid choking on the pent up stress and worry that had been building ever since they’d left lunch for the hospital nearly four hours ago. 

 

Thankfully, before he could spiral much farther, Riku spotted Sora’s old, used Jeep pulling up to the curb. Sora didn’t even turn it off before he jumped out of the driver’s seat, running up to Riku. 

 

He was still limping, Riku noticed absentmindedly. 

 

“Riku!” Sora shouted, throwing his arms around him. Riku froze in surprise, but quickly hugged Sora back. “How is he?” 

 

Riku had texted Sora the watered down version of what had happened. As Sora pulled out of the hug, Riku shrugged. “The last update was that he was still in critical condition, but they were starting to get hopeful that he’d be okay.” 

 

Sora nodded. “Right. That’s good, at least. He’ll be okay.” 

 

Riku nodded. “Thanks for coming, by the way. I don’t think I could have pried Axel away from Roxas’ side right now. He’s super worried about him.” 

 

“Of course I came,” Sora said, shaking his head. “I’m glad you asked. Did you want to go back to the apartment?” 

 

Riku nodded again, starting to feel something like a broken ragdoll. “Yeah. Get some new clothes for Roxas and Vanitas. And do a coffee run, too, if that’s okay.” 

 

“Yeah, of course,” Sora said again. “Come on, before the gummiship knocks itself out of park.”

 

Riku was happy to follow him into the old, weirdly named car. He’d asked Sora about it once, when he’d first told him his car’s name, but Sora had given some half winded answer about childhood dreams and spaceships that hadn’t really made sense. Then again, Riku had zoned out halfway through the explanation, so maybe it had. 

 

Sora popped the stick out of park and into drive. He was kind of a terrible driver, actually, laying on the gas too hard and breaking too quickly, but Riku wasn’t much better, so he couldn’t complain. 

 

The radio filled the silence between them as Riku stared out the window. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but he still felt the lingering anxiety from being cooped up in the hospital in his bones. He almost didn’t want to go back.

 

For a moment, he considered dropping off the clothes and running. He and Ventus weren’t that close, after all. Was it weird for him to even be there? They were friends, sure, but he wasn’t Aqua or Terra. Maybe he was just intruding. 

 

But then he thought about how relieved Roxas had been to see them. Even if he hadn’t admitted it, it showed. He’d slowly relaxed after their arrival, even laughing at one of Axel’s bad jokes less than an hour ago. And there was Vanitas, too, who Riku thought must feel just as suffocated if not infinitely more so than he had. He didn’t know if he was close with Aqua or Terra, or even Roxas for that matter, but he’d somewhat warmed up to the lot of them slowly as the hours dredged on. Riku didn’t want to make him sit by himself while people swarmed Roxas. 

 

So he’d go back, even if it was boring and scary and kind of awkward. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t relieved to have escaped for a short while, though. He wondered if that made him a bad person, but pushed the thought away. 

 

He wanted to go back to Saturday, when he was wasted and dancing with Sora and not stressed about the life of his roommate’s brother and wondering when everything went completely to shit. 

 

His phone buzzed in his lap, Kairi with the coffee order. 

 

It didn’t take very long to get to the apartment, compared to the earlier drive to the hospital, and Riku was both grateful for and annoyed by it. 

 

They both went inside, Sora leaning on the doorframe while Riku rummaged around Roxas’ room first to find a clean pair of sweats and a fresh sweatshirt before going into his own room to do the same for Vanitas. 

 

Sora was silent the entire time and, honestly, Riku kind of wished he wasn’t. He missed the aimless chatter that Sora usually spewed, but maybe he was keeping quiet for Riku’s sake. 

 

It was sometime then that his phone buzzed again. Riku didn’t recognize the number, but he let out a deep sigh of relief at the message itself. From that, it was pretty easy to connect the dots. Vanitas probably got his number from Kairi or someone else in the group.

 

“Hey, Sora, he’s going to be okay,” Riku said, letting out a sigh of relief. 

 

“That’s awesome!” Sora practically screeched. 

 

“Yeah, Vanitas just texted me,” Riku told him, grin pulling his lips from ear to ear. “He’s pretty fucked up, still, but he’s gonna live.” 

 

“Thank god,” Sora said. His happiness was genuine, but that was just like Sora. He’d probably talked to Ventus even less than Riku had, but he was genuinely glad to hear that he would be okay, as relieved as if they’d been best friends. Sora was just compassionate like that. “We should probably hurry back, then.”

 

Riku nodded, typing a quick reply to Vanitas. “Thanks, Sora.”

 

Sora beamed at him. “No problem.”

 

The time seemed to fly then, because the next thing Riku knew he was sitting in the rusty Jeep again, with a tray of coffees on his lap and Sora humming along to the radio in the driver’s seat. 

 

“And out you go,” Sora said, parking the car against the curb, as close to the door as he could get for Riku. “Let me know when you want to go home and I’ll come get you again, yeah? Save Axel some gas.” 

 

Riku was both surprised and not surprised at the offer. “I… Yeah, I will. Thanks, Sora.”

 

“No problem,” Sora answered. “Let me know if you need anything else, yeah?” 

 

“I will,” Riku repeated. “Thanks, again.” 

 

Sora waved it off. “Quit thanking me. You’re my friend, it’s not even a question. If you need me, I’ll be there.” 

 

Riku’s heart was thudding in his chest harder than he was proud to admit. “You’re a good friend, Sora.” 

 

“I know,” Sora said, winking at him. “Now get going, I bet they really want to get some new clothes on in there.” 

 

“Right,” Riku said, opening the car door. He paused before his feet hit the concrete, turning to look at Sora again. 

 

Sora raised an eyebrow at his pause. “What?” 

 

“It’s… Nothing,” Riku said, turning back. “See you later, Sora.” 

 

“Later!” 

 

* * *

  
  


When Riku returned to the waiting room, the atmosphere had changed drastically. For starters, Roxas wasn’t there, which Riku thought was strange until Xion explained to him that family members were permitted to see Ventus right now, but he hadn’t been cleared for other visitors yet. Which was probably why Vanitas looked so pissed at the moment. 

 

Still, an excited feeling had caught in the air and, while they all knew that the road to recovery would be long, they were just happy that Ventus was alive and, eventually, he would be well. That was what mattered. 

 

Their friend would be okay and that was all that mattered. 

 

* * *

  
  


Wednesday was far less eventful than the two days before it. There were no roommates disappearing to the hospital (in fact, Roxas even came back to the apartment for a few hours to shower and sleep) and Ventus wasn’t on the brink of death (anymore, anyways).

 

Riku woke up on time and miraculously went to all of his classes. The world seemed to still be spinning, which didn’t seem right after the draining day that Tuesday had been, but thus was the way of life. 

 

Riku went to lunch with Sora, because Wednesday was a Sora Day, and apparently no amount of life or death drama could change that. Sora was more anxious than normal, but Riku just supposed that that was because of his audition the next day. It seemed like a really big deal, so of course Sora was worried. Hopefully he was excited, too, but right now he was picking at his food and swallowing hard with every other word, so it looked like the nerves were starting to get to him. 

 

“Earth to Sora,” Riku finally said as Sora stabbed his salad for the fifth time without taking a bite. 

 

Sora looked up, quick to plaster a fake smile on his face. Riku could see right through it, though. He’d seen Sora’s real smile enough now to know when he was faking it. “Sorry. Just lost in my thoughts.” 

 

“You’re supposed to be thinking about trace fossils,” Riku reminded him, tapping the textbook on the table between them with the end of his fork. 

 

Sora had an exam next week, after all, and from what Riku could tell, he hadn’t been studying at all. Not that Riku could really blame him, it’d been a wild couple of days, but still. 

 

Sora’s smile became sheepish at that. “Yeah, right. Trace fossils and all that. Exciting stuff.” 

 

“It is,” Riku told him, a little wistfully. “It’s really cool stuff, you now. Seeing the evidence that something existed without needing to actually see it? Knowing that something was there only from the things it left behind? It’s so cool. We can learn so much about the behaviours and activities of, like, any creature from just the fossils it left behind.” 

 

He stopped when he realized Sora was smiling at him, holding his cheek in his palm and giving him the most tender look he’d seen in awhile. 

 

“What?” Riku asked, feeling suddenly self conscious. He usually tried to dial the nerd in him down, but sometimes he got a little carried away. He could talk about this for hours, really, if someone would listen. 

 

Sora shrugged. “I like listening to you talk about this stuff. You get so excited. It’s cute.” 

 

Riku felt his face heating up like a furnace, practically sputtering at that. “Cute?” 

 

Sora nodded. “Absolutely adorable. I could listen to you talk about this stuff for hours.” 

 

Well. 

 

“If you don’t start doing your work, you might have to,” Riku threatened, tsking as he pushed the textbook towards Sora. 

 

“Better than learning these definitions,” Sora groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “Is it time to head to class yet?” 

 

Riku took a bite of his own lunch, shaking his head. “Nope.” 

 

Sora groaned. “I guess I can’t complain, since I get to hang out with you.”

 

He grinned, pretty damn evilly, as Riku’s face turned a bright red. 

 

“Shush,” Riku muttered, ducking his head to hide the fact that he was the same color as the tomatoes in Sora’s salad. 

 

Sora’s laugh sounded like music. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Thursday had seemed like it was going to be fine, right up until Riku found Sora in his kitchen. Riku could tell that he was very clearly trying not to cry. It made his heart ache, to see Sora like this. His knees were pulled up to his chin as he sat on the couch and his eyes stared straight ahead at the wall, blinking rapidly to keep the droplets from falling. 

 

He’d shown up unannounced about five minutes ago, spewing near nonsense about blowing his audition and how badly his foot hurt and, most importantly to Riku at the moment, how he’d been lying when the doctor cleared him to dance. 

 

“I’m so stupid, Riku,” he said, his voice shaking. “I just thought… I thought I could do it, you know? I thought I was strong enough.” 

 

Riku’s heart felt like it was being twisted. “Sora.” 

 

He could have scolded Sora for being so foolish, for going against his doctor’s orders, for lying to everyone about it. But Sora knew that already. Riku could see it in the slouch of his shoulders, in the tremble of his bottom lip. Sora was perfectly aware that he’d fucked up and Riku didn’t need to be the one to remind him. 

 

Sora didn’t even look up at the sound of his own name. All he did was stare at the wall and the TV hung on it, even though it was off. 

 

Riku wanted to ask if he was sure that the audition was completely wasted. Surely, he thought, there’d be more chances for Sora. He could just explain that he’d injured his foot less than a week ago, severely enough that he’d needed ten stitches for it, and they’d let him try again once it was healed. 

 

The glossiness of Sora’s eyes, however, told him the answer before he could even ask. 

 

As Riku watched, Sora tried to force a smile onto his lips. First, it was just a twitch, but slowly his lips pulled and then he was smiling, smiling even as the first tear escaped and slowly rolled down his cheek. Riku could barely comprehend what was happening because, really, why the hell was Sora smiling right now? When he was so close to breaking down? Riku’s brain couldn’t comprehend it. 

 

“It’ll be okay, though,” Sora said. Despite his positive words, his voice was still shaking. “I’ll find another company and audition for them and it will. It will be fine. This isn’t the end.” 

 

Then, Riku realized what was happening. 

 

Sora had been so close, so goddamn close to losing it just a moment before. He’d seen it in the way he shook, in the way his breaths had been short and tight. But now, he was desperately trying to pull himself back together. Riku wasn’t sure why, or whose sake it was for, but Sora seemed to desperately burying his feelings, to hide the anger and the frustration and the shame and-

 

It was a feeling Riku knew all too well. 

 

The lying, the pushing it down until you could pretend it stopped hurting. He knew it all too well in the unopened law school applications, in the unanswered calls from his father, in the tears of a child who just wished love could truly be unconditional. Bury it all, and bury it deep, bury it all and most days you could pretend that it didn’t hurt. 

 

Somehow, he didn’t think this was Sora’s first rejection. This was not the reaction of someone who was surprised and upset, but the jaded resignation of someone who had been torn down time after time and kept going solely because they thought they had to. Because they didn’t know what else to do, how else to go on. There was no time for self pity not because it was feared, but because it had been felt time and time again, the unrelenting shadow of an old friend. 

 

In that moment, Riku truly felt like he’d known Sora his entire life. Maybe he had in another life. Another life where they’d grown up together, had known each other for more than just a few spare months. Riku felt like he was living that life, right now with Sora on the verge of a full blown breakdown on his couch, and not this one. Not the one where he’d been dragged away from the Islands as a child, not the one where he only knew Sora because of a class cancellation. That life, the one where they’d known each other forever, suddenly felt so much more real to Riku right now. The one he had been living seemed like a lie. 

 

Throughout this revelation of his, Sora had still been babbling. He was crying now, much harder, but forcing the same unhappy smile onto his face nonetheless. 

 

Riku wanted to hold him. He didn’t want to tell him that everything would be okay because he was sure that Sora knew better than that by now. 

 

“And I mean, it really won’t be the end of the world. It’s just this summer, anyways. It’d be fine if I just stayed here and took summer classes because I was the only one who didn’t get a position with a company or show, it’s fine. No one would even really be that surprised, anyways,” Sora was saying. To who, Riku wasn’t sure. Was he even aware he was speaking? Possibly not. Sora, for the short time Riku had known him, had on several occasions talked out loud when he hadn’t meant to. He could be upset enough now to be doing it on a much larger scale. 

 

Still, every word felt like a knife in Riku’s heart. No one would be surprised? Surely, that wasn’t true. 

 

“Sora,” he said again, louder and stronger this time. It was enough to make Sora finally turn his head to look at him. Tears were flowing freely now, a steady stream rolling off his chin. “You don’t believe that. I know you don’t.”

 

Sora made some noise that was half sob and half whine and it was high pitched enough that kind of hurt Riku’s ears. “I don’t. But it would be so much easier if I did, you know?”

 

Riku nodded because, yeah, he could easily understand that. Finally, he moved to the couch, sitting right next to Sora. Sora’s eyes followed him the entire time. As Riku sat down, he wiped at his eyes, trying to get rid of the tears that were still flowing, but it didn’t help. 

 

“Probably,” Riku said. “But it would be a sad way to live.” 

 

Sora sniffled. “I’m tired of being sad.” 

 

_ Aren’t we all, _ Riku thought. 

 

“Hey Riku?” Sora asked.

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“Can I hug you? I think it’d make me feel better,” Sora said.

 

“Duh,” Riku answered, throwing his arms around Sora without question. Sora buried his face into Riku’s shirt, letting an ugly sob out as his arms wrapped around Riku’s waist. 

 

Under any other circumstance, Riku would have been thrilled to be holding Sora tightly like this, like he’d never have to let go. But as it was, Sora was shaking against him and his tears were starting to soak through the front of Riku’s shirt. But Riku was still happy, in a way. He was happy that Sora was here, selfishly happy that Sora had chosen to come to him in his hour of need. It was nice, feeling needed, feeling wanted. Riku just wished the circumstances could be a little better.

 

He let Sora cry into his chest, tracing patterns on his back and murmuring about how it would be okay and that Sora would have more auditions, more shots to live his dreams. 

 

It felt like hours before Sora began to stop crying, slowly as sniffles started to replace sobs, but in reality it had probably only been like twenty minutes or so. 

 

“Do you think I could crash here tonight?” Sora asked once he’d finally calmed down. His voice sounded raspy, which actually suited him. “I don’t really want to go back to the apartment.” 

 

“Of course,” Riku said, feeling strangely like he was stealing Sora’s line for once. “We can make it a sleepover.” 

 

Sora finally pulled back out of the hug. Riku wished he wouldn’t, but dropped his arms to his sides. Sora wiped his nose with his sweater sleeve, making a face. “Gross… Sorry for crying all over your shirt.” 

 

Despite himself, Riku laughed at that. “It’s okay, Sora.” 

 

Sora laughed. It was shaky and a little unhinged sounding, but it was a laugh nonetheless, so Riku was glad to hear it. 

 

“Wanna bet that I could beat your ass at Mario Kart?” Riku asked. 

 

Sora’s eyes narrowed playfully. “I’ll take that bet. On one condition.” 

 

“Oh?” Riku asked, raising an eyebrow. 

 

Sora grinned at him, worries seemingly forgotten in the pursuit of Mario Kart. Which was good, since Riku’s entire plan had been to distract him from being sad. “We have to build a blanket fort first.”

 

Riku stared at him. 

 

Sora backtracked quickly, “I mean, only if you want to! We could-”

 

Riku cut him off quickly, grabbing Sora’s flailing hands in his on instinct. “That’s a great idea, Sora. Let’s do it.” 

 

It was surprisingly easy to cheer Sora up after that. Riku raided his room for all the blankets and long jackets he could find to build their fort with. It was kind of an abomination, really, but Sora didn’t stop laughing the entire time that they were building it, and it was kind of cozy to curl up in, so Riku had no complaints. 

 

Riku was rather abysmal at Mario Kart, though he’d never admit it, but that didn’t make it any less fun as he raced Sora under their tent. They had barely managed to get the roof of their little tent high enough to actually see the tv, but that just somehow added to the appeal of the entire night. Pizza was ordered and Riku came in dead last, behind even the NPCS, too many times to count, but it was genuinely fun despite that. Sora got far too excited when he won, which was every time, nearly taking the entire fort down when his fist punched just a little too high into the air after a particularly tight race. 

 

When it was far past their bedtimes and well into their sleepover, Riku found himself glancing at Sora frequently. He was checking for the smile, making sure his eyes shone brightly with joy rather than from tears threatening to spill out of them. He knew that Sora must be, at least to an extent, still upset, but he was glad that he could make him feel better, at least for a little while. It was nice, really, helping his friend. Riku wished he could do it more often. 

 

“Are we gonna sleep in here?” Sora finally asked, yawning like a madman as the clock rolled towards two in the morning. “Because that would be rad, but if my back doesn’t get another pillow under it, it might break.” 

 

Riku really hadn’t thought that far ahead, but he nodded. “We can do that. I’ll steal some more pillows from Roxas’ room.” 

 

Roxas hadn’t returned home all night, but Riku wasn’t worried. He’d been staying at the hospital every night since the accident, or at Axel’s because it was closer than their place was. 

 

He managed to get out of their little fort, but it really was a feat to not bring it down in the process. All of Riku’s limbs cracked as he stood up, making Sora snort. 

 

“And I thought my dancer joints was bad,” he said. 

 

Riku flipped him off in good spirit.

 

When he came back to the living room, Sora was already starting to curl up into the pillows they already had been using, eyes closing. 

 

Riku chucked a pillow at him. “Here you go, sleepyhead.” 

 

“It’s a perfectly reasonable time to be sleepy,” Sora protested, tucking the pillow under his head. 

 

“Mhmm,” Riku answered, rolling his eyes as he crawled under the blankets and laid down beside Sora. 

 

Maybe Sora was onto something, though, because Riku could have stayed up all night worrying about having to sleep next to Sora completely sober, but instead, he fell asleep in minutes. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic!!! has a playlist now!!!!! you can listen to it [here!!!](https://open.spotify.com/user/u0ulei3pmctwbhm9xlt2bcdrm/playlist/2hpaa3rMqDaZhjvuhMRhPw?si=9dopFGzRSZeyxZSy29nZSA)
> 
> as always, please please please leave a comment and a kudos if u enjoyed the chapter!!! r comments really fuel the writing demon that has it's deathgrip on my [redacted] i know this one was kind of a downer, but i hope u enjoyed it regardless!! the happy ending tag wasn't a lie, i promise!! we'll get there!!!


	4. i wouldn't follow you

When Riku woke up Friday morning, it was storming. His apartment was dark, which was strange, because he knew that he’d fallen asleep before he ever got around to getting back up and turning the lights off. 

 

Groggily, he reached out for his phone, nearly jumping in surprise when his hand touched warm flesh rather than cold metal. In an instant, memories of the night before returned to him. And he was under the blanket fort, which explained the darkness, at least somewhat. 

 

He reached around aimlessly some more, until his hand finally curled around the edges of his cell phone. Two of his fingers cracked in the process, which was a testament to just how bad of an idea sleeping on the floor had been. His hair was all over the place, so he shifted enough so that he could grab it (most of it, anyways, it was really getting too long) and put it up.

 

And yet, Riku refused to regret it, even as the stiffness in his neck started to become more and more noticeable the more he returned to the land of the living. Despite his worries about him, Sora had had fun and, best of all, he had fallen asleep with a smile on his face. 

 

Riku could just barely make him out now as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The smile had fallen during the night (though it might have been a bit creepy if it hadn’t, so Riku wasn’t too worried about that) and there was drool crusted on the corner of his mouth. The rise and fall of his chest was a steady rhythm as he snored quietly. One arm was thrown over his eyes, the other bent at an entirely uncomfortable angle at his side. His hair was sticking every which way and his sweatshirt from the night before seemed to be choking him a little bit, the hood half wrapped around his neck. 

 

And yet, despite all that, he looked as beautiful as ever. 

 

It wasn’t fair. 

 

Riku couldn’t really stand to look much longer, so instead he clicked the button to bring his phone to life, squinting at the bright screen immediately. It was burning his eyes, even at the lowest setting, which really just seemed like a design flaw on the manufacturer’s behalf. 

 

When his eyes finally adjusted, the clock was the first thing that got his attention. It was well past nine in the morning, which meant that not only did he miss his gym time for the day, he was also missing his first class of the day. It was hard to bring himself to care about that. Another history class, another theoretical law class. What he wouldn’t give to never have to think about any of it again. 

 

There was a new message from Roxas, telling him that he’d finally be coming back to the apartment that night and to plan on doing some mindless movie night and face masks because he really, really needed a night to destress. Riku texted him back, asking which kind of masks he should get. Riku had never been into skincare before he’d met Roxas, being a boy in the most stereotypical way and only washing his face with soap in the shower, but after they’d started living together, that had changed for the better. Roxas was nearly religious when it came to skincare, often making Riku do all sorts of masks and treatments with him on their nights in. Riku had protested at first, but it had really grown on him.

 

Honestly, he would be willing to put up with a million face masks at this point if it would make Roxas happy. It was good to see him going back to his old routines, at least somewhat. The semblance of normal was good for him and, really, Riku kind of just wanted to see him smile again after everything he’d been through. 

 

Roxas didn’t text him back immediately, but that was fine. Hopefully he was getting some sleep. Riku made a note to get under eye masks even if Roxas didn’t ask for them. 

 

_ “dont worry bout it. some company is sending me shit to test out for kingstagram or smth.” _ Roxas sent back. 

 

Riku raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t question it. The Sunday after Halloween, they’d all been surprised to see that Roxas’ Linguini costume from the party had gone somewhat viral, turning him into an overnight Kingstagram celebrity of sorts. Unfortunately, none of them had had much of a chance to tease him about it yet, since Monday and the sudden accident.

 

He made a mental note to go to the drugstore anyways, just to be safe. He wasn’t entirely sure he trusted random companies off Kingstagram. Still, he’d be happy to put up with a few new zits if it made Roxas happy. 

 

Riku slowly lost himself to thought as he scrolled through the few apps he checked on a daily basis. I t was mind numbing and he welcomed it, until the sound of Sora shifting startled him out of his mindless scroll, nearly making him jump , having half forgotten that he was there in the first place. For a moment, Riku considered waking him up, in case he wanted to get going to his classes, but decided against it. Letting Sora sleep in seemed like the nice thing to do and, selfishly, Riku didn’t want him to leave yet. 

 

It didn’t take very long for him to wake up on his own, though. Less than twenty minutes later, Riku’s phone was being knocked out of his hands by a stray fist as Sora stretched himself awake. He was surprised, but not for long, laughing at his own surprise as Sora grumbled a groggy apology. 

 

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Riku said, reaching over to ruffle Sora’s hair. 

 

Sora swatted his hand away lazily before rubbing his eyes, blinking them open at Riku. “Shu’ up.”

 

Riku felt like his heart was going to burst. He wished that he could wake up to this every morning. He couldn’t think of anything better. 

 

Sora stretched out again and Riku winced at the sound of multiple joints cracking like thunder. It sounded painful, but Sora barely seemed to notice. 

 

“I’m hungry,” Sora whined, rubbing at his eyes again. He must have woken up even groggier than Riku had. That was understandable; they’d both only gotten a handful of hours of sleep by Riku’s estimate. They’d stayed up half the night playing video games, after all. 

 

“Want me to make pancakes?” Riku asked. He’d bought the mix when they first moved into the apartment, always saying that he’d get around to making them some other time. Hopefully it was still good. 

 

Sora’s eyes shot to him instantly. “Hell yeah I do.”

 

Riku laughed softly at that. “Okay, get up then and come help me make them.”

 

Sora pouted, but Riku knew he was faking it. “I thought you said you were going to make them.” 

 

“Yeah, but somebody has to taste the batter and make sure it’s okay,” Riku pointed out as he crawled out from under the fort.  

 

Sora, seemingly satisfied with this answer, crawled out after him. “Well, if that’s the case.” 

 

“Unless you want me to find someone else to cook these pancakes for…” Riku started. 

 

“Don’t you dare,” Sora pouted, lifting himself onto his spot on the counter. 

 

Riku smiled as he rummaged around his cupboard, wondering where the hell he’d put the mix and praying that it hadn’t gone bad. Then again, there was a diner down the road, so if it expired, then they could just brave the rain.

 

As soon as he had the thought, thunder cracked outside, booming through the apartment and making Riku jump ten feet in the air in surprise. 

 

Maybe braving the rain wasn’t going to happen after all. 

 

“Sounds like someone pissed off the Old Gods,” Sora said, solemnly. 

 

Riku shrugged. “Guess so. Maybe someone got too greedy with their fishing again.”

 

“And cursed us all to live in darkness,” Sora sighed, finishing the old Island tale for him. It was one of the sillier tales that Riku remembered from his childhood, but one of his favorites, as well. It was a good story, he thought, about forgiveness.

 

The story’s protagonist became hungry with greed after the good fortune of several fishing trips, hoarding all the Island’s fish for himself. When the rest of the Island suffered from his actions, one of the Island’s Old Gods, a being ancient enough to lose their name to time, cursed all of the Destiny Islands to an eternal darkness of night and storm unless he learn from his mistakes and share his good fortune with those who were in need. 

 

In the end, he did learn and grew to be a kind and generous man, restoring balance and sunshine to the Islands. 

 

Riku was pretty sure it was just an old wives tale made up to keep children from being greedy, but he liked it anyways. 

 

“I hope someone hurries up and tells him to share the fish already,” Riku said, finally pulling the box of pancake mix from the cupboard. “I’m definitely skipping my classes on Monday if it’s still raining.”

 

“Amen to that,” Sora agreed. “I’m not sure the old gummyship could survive this storm. Also I’m lazy.” 

 

“You have to teach a class Monday,” Riku pointed out.

 

Sora wrinkled his nose at the reminder, the spread of freckles dashed across his cheeks smushing together as his face shifted. Said freckles seemed extra prominent today, something Riku was eternally grateful for. “Shit.” 

 

“Shit indeed,” Riku said as he squatted down to look for a pan now. 

 

“I mean, I could always cancel.” Sora sounded thoughtful and Riku almost wanted to encourage him, even though he’d grown to really enjoy learning ballet from Sora. 

 

Instead, he snorted, standing up so he could look Sora in the eyes. “Some professor you are.” 

 

Sora practically sputtered with indignity at that and it made something in Riku’s heart feel warm and fuzzy. “I’m not a professor! I’m barely a TA-” 

 

“Mhmm, right,” Riku teased. “Sounds fake to me, Professor Aonani.”

 

Sora’s face seemed to be turning bright red, which only made Riku grin harder. “Oh my god, shut up. You’re making me feel old.”

 

That Riku had to roll his eyes at. “You’re younger than me, Sora.”

 

“Yeah, but still,” Sora whined. “Not by that much.”

 

“Like, a whole year,” Riku pointed out. 

 

While they bickered amicably, the pancake Riku was making was finally starting to look like, well, a pancake. It had taken some time, considering it took ten years for his stove to heat up, but it was almost ready to flip (and, really, thank god for that, because it was starting to smell really good and Riku was getting hungry). 

 

Sora was still trying to convince Riku that he wasn’t that much younger when Riku finally did flip the pancake, and several things happened at once.

 

The first was that he successfully flipped the pancake (rather impressively, he might add). 

 

The second was that there was a sound like something crackling and the entire apartment went dark. 

 

The third was that Sora jumped at the sound of thunder, nearly smacking his head on the low ceiling. He also nearly fell off the counter on the process, but managed to save himself at the last moment. 

 

“Fuck,” Riku muttered, blinking rapidly to try and adjust his eyes to the sudden darkness that had fallen around them. “Guess the power’s out.” 

 

“Jeez,” Sora replied, rubbing at the back of his neck, “Guess so.” 

 

Riku lifted the pan, hovering his hand over the burned. It was still warm.

 

“Stove’s still working, though,” Riku shrugged. 

 

“It’s not electric, dummy,” Sora teased fondly. Riku met his eyes for a moment in the dark, smiling as he barely made out the one Sora wore. 

 

“Would you mind looking for a candle while I finish these? Just in case it’s off for awhile. I have a bunch in my room, it’s the one on the right.” 

 

Sora nodded, hopping of the counter and mocking a salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

 

Riku chuckled as he walked off, sliding the first pancake onto a plate. It hadn’t been as hard to make as he’d expected it to be, power outage excluded. 

 

“I can’t find them!” Sora called, griping from Riku’s room.

 

“Look on the desk!” Riku half shouted back. He kind of hoarded the things, so he knew that they were there. And by kind of, he meant that he had a miniature collection of candles and most of the local Bath and Body employees knew him by name at this point (he just liked how they smelled).

 

“Okay!” 

 

There was a short ringtone-like jingle from the room not long after. It was followed by a soft, cautious sounding, “Hello?” 

 

Riku wondered who the hell could be calling Sora this early (well, it wasn’t really early anymore, but still) in the morning, and kept on cooking.

 

He was nearly done with the next two pancakes by the time Sora came back into the living, gripping a candle in one hand and his phone in the other, looking shell shocked.

 

Riku immediately dropped the pan onto the stovetop, fully prepared to let the pancake burn, to rush around the bar and be by his side. 

 

“What’s wrong?” He asked. He couldn’t be bothered to hide his worry- after the week they’d all had, it was completely justified to be wary of strange calls in the middle of the morning.

 

“That was the company,” Sora said, staring straight ahead, barely seeing Riku out of the corner of his eye if he was looking at him at all. “They… want me to re-audition?” 

 

Riku’s eyes widened and he was so happy for him that he nearly hugged him in surprise, barely stopping himself at the last moment. “That’s great, Sora!” 

 

“Yeah… I guess they could tell that my foot was injured,” Sora said sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck. “So they want me to let it heal and then reaudition in a few weeks.” 

 

“That’s- I’m so proud of you, Sora,” Riku said. And he really, truly meant it. Maybe it wouldn’t mean much to Sora, but Riku meant it with his entire heart.

 

Sora finally looked at him. “Thanks, Riku.”

 

And they just looked at each other for a moment. 

 

Finally, Sora said. “I need to do something stupid. Turn off the stove.”

 

And before Riku could even finish the “What?” that was coming out of his mouth, Sora was bolting for the door.

 

Riku didn’t even think to put on his shoes, but he did turn the stove off before following Sora into the hallway, heading straight for the stairs. 

 

“Sora, where are you going?” Riku asked as he caught up to him, grabbing a gentle hold on Sora’s wrist to avoid any more bolting off from him. 

 

“Outside,” Sora said simply. 

 

Riku blanched. He, for one, did not want to go out into the storm and he couldn’t even fathom why Sora would want to, either. “What? Why? With-”

 

“The storm, I know,” Sora finished, opening the door to the staircase and starting down it. At some point, he had slipped out of Riku’s grip on his wrist so that he could hold onto his hand instead. “That’s why I said it was stupid.” 

 

“You’re going to get sick,” Riku argued as they made it down the first flight of stairs. 

 

“Maybe,” Sora said, shrugging. “But a storm is the perfect weather for screaming at the sky, isn’t it?” 

 

“Why do you need to scream at the sky?” Riku asked.

 

Sora stopped abruptly, nearly causing Riku to run into him. He turned, staring up at him from the next stair down. And he shrugged.

 

“Because I’m mad,” he said, as if it was the most simple thing in the world. 

 

And then they were off again, until another set of stairs was cleared. He was too confused to properly ask why Sora was even mad in the first place- this was good news, wasn’t it?- and the next thing he knew, they were standing at the front door. 

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to scream at the ceiling instead?” Riku asked, already mourning how gross his socks were gonna be once they stepped outside. 

 

To answer, Sora just pushed the door open and stepped outside. He held it open for him with the hand not occupied holding Riku’s. 

 

Riku swallowed hard, once, before stepping to the other side.

 

The rain hit him like a million tiny bee stings, harsh and almost painful as they hit his face. His clothes were soaked through instantly, socks squishing in water as he stepped onto the sidewalk, bangs sticking to his forehead. The wind howled around them like a monster, threatening to knock them over at any moment. It was truly raging and Riku wondered how long it was going to be before a spare tree branch came and knocked him out. 

 

And beside him, Sora let out a scream of pure frustration. Riku could barely hear it over the roar of the storm, but it ripped its way from Sora’s throat like a demon, grating against Riku’s ears and filling him with the urge to just wrap Sora in his arms and tell him that everything was going to be okay. 

 

“I’m so fucking stupid!,” Sora shouted, “I’m an idiot and I hate my stupid, injured foot!”

 

And he screamed again, quieter this time, but powerful nonetheless. Riku hated the sound. 

 

“You try it,” he said when he was done, shouting to be heard over the wind.

 

Riku blanched at first, not really sure what he had to yell about. 

 

But then he thought of a weeks worth of worry for not one, but two friends, of the people around him suffering despite being the most undeserving of it, of a degree he didn’t want but almost had, and the life his father wanted him to live and thought that maybe he had something to shout about after all. 

 

So he screamed into the storm, into the screaming winds and raging rains and finally understood why Sora needed to do this in the first place. 

 

It was cathartic, more so than he could have ever imagined, despite the rain soaking cold into his bones and the wind whipping his ponytail every which way. 

 

“I don’t want to be a goddamn lawyer!” He shouted into the sky, letting the wind whip the words from his throat and carry them away. It was freeing, to say it out loud. To admit it, to the world and, most importantly, to himself. 

 

He took every feeling he’d been ignoring, every rejection from his family, every moment he refused to acknowledge when he buried his dreams in a chest in the sand and was told to never look back, and screamed them into the wind. 

 

When he finally stopped, his throat hurt, but he could barely feel it. 

 

He looked to Sora, who was grinning at him like a madman. A strange euphoria pumped through Riku’s veins, flowing from his heart and into every limb of his body. He felt  _ free _ . 

 

“It helps, doesn’t it?” Sora asked, still half shouting to be heard.

 

Riku nodded. 

 

“Riku?” 

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“Can I kiss you?” Sora asked. 

 

Time seemed to freeze as Riku registered what he was asking. 

 

He wasn’t entirely sure he could actually open his mouth and speak words right now. He was too busy trying to comprehend the fact that  _ Sora _ wanted to kiss  _ him. _

 

So, rather than trying to answer, he did the only thing he could think to, which was to turn and face Sora. Sora was chewing at his bottom lip- how had Riku never noticed him doing that before?- and looked as nervous as Riku felt, but didn’t back down. He stood his ground, waiting for his answer, refusing to take the words back. 

 

So Riku kissed him. 

 

Sora’s lips were soft and wet with rain on his. The wind was tearing Riku’s eardrums apart at this point and they were both starting to shiver from the cold, but the warm pit in Riku’s stomach was all the heat he needed. Despite the storm, it was perfect. 

 

It was short, unfortunately, because before it could become much more than a chaste peck, Sora pulled back and sneezed. 

 

“Oh no,” he said. 

 

“I told you you were going to get sick,” Riku reminded him, but he couldn’t help how stupidly fond his voice sounded. “At least, I hope you meant that and not the kiss.”

 

Sora’s eyes widened exponentially, frantically backtracking, “That’s what I meant! I meant the sneezing not that kiss- the kiss was great, we really should do that again, I mean, if I’m not going to get you sick because that would be-”

 

“Sora,” Riku cut him off before he could ramble them both to death. 

 

“Yeah?” Sora answered. 

 

“Shut up and kiss me,” Riku said. 

 

So Sora did. 

 

* * *

 

Surprisingly, the rain did not make Riku sick. 

 

Less surprisingly, it gave Sora the flu, which he told Riku about the next morning with a pathetic tone of voice over the phone. 

 

“It’s Saturday,” Sora moaned. “How come I had to get sick on a Saturday?” 

 

“It’s just not your day anymore,” Riku suggested. After all, last week Sora had sliced his foot open on a Saturday. 

 

“Hopefully it doesn’t become a habit,” Sora muttered. Riku could practically hear the yawn in his voice. “I’m over it.”

 

“Want me to come over and make you soup?” Riku asked. It was barely ten in the morning, but he didn’t have any plans for the rest of the day, other than catching up on homework from the previous week. And he’d be happier if he could do that with Sora, even if Sora spent the entire time fever-napping.

 

“Are you sure you wanna leave Roxas alone?” Sora asked. 

 

Riku’s smile dropped and he was glad Sora couldn’t see it through the phone. 

 

Roxas had finally come back to the apartment after Sora had left yesterday and they had had their mini spa and movie night as planned. It actually went really well, until Roxas had started crying out of seemingly nowhere (he later confessed it was because they ended up watching one of Ventus’ favorite movies and lack of sleep made him stupidly over emotional). Riku had confided all of this to Sora, of course, because they hadn’t stopped talking to each other since the storm, caught up in the excitement of a new relationship. 

 

“He’s still asleep,” Riku said, assuming so since he hadn’t heard Roxas emerge from his room yet. “He said he was going to go back to the hospital today since Ventus is finally getting released after his PT session, so he should be fine without me. I’ll tell him to call if he needs anything.”

 

Sora seemed placated by that answer. “Then hell yeah I want you to come over and make me soup. And also cuddles, because I’m fucking freezing even with five blankets on.”

 

“Mhmm,” Riku said, smiling into his pillow like a lovesick teenager. The thrill of hearing Sora openly say he wanted cuddles from  _ Riku _ was never going to be lost on him, he could tell that much already. 

 

“I don’t think I’m contagious, so it’s fine,” Sora pointed out.

 

“‘Don’t think?’” Riku repeated, as if it mattered. He was pretty sure he’d go even if Sora knew for a fact he was contagious. The flu would be worth it. 

 

“I said what I said,” Sora said and Riku could practically see him shrugging with it. 

 

“Fair enough. I’ll be there in ten?” Riku asked, giving Sora a chance to change his mind, just in case. 

 

“Drive safe!” was Sora’s answer. Riku’s stupid heart skipped a beat. 

 

“I will,” he assured him before hanging up. 

 

* * *

 

He had to stop at the grocery store and buy ingredients to actually make the soup with, so it ended up being more than ten minutes before he was at Sora’s apartment complex, but Sora didn’t seem to mind when he opened the door.

 

He was deathly pale compared to his naturally tanned complexion and had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Riku supposed he wasn’t kidding about freezing. Hopefully he’d start to warm up and break the fever soon, though. Riku hated to see him so distressed. Also, selfishly, he wanted Sora to get better so Riku could take him on a real date, but that was less important. 

 

“Thanks for coming!” Sora said, trying to sound like his normal cheerful self, but his voice was raspy and he started coughing at the end of his sentence. He grimaced, rubbing at his eyes. “Ugh, sorry. That was gross.”

 

“It’s fine,” Riku reassured him. 

 

Sora stepped back and held the door open. “Come on in?” 

 

Riku did as he was asked, stepping into the small, welcoming apartment. He could easily tell where Sora had set up camp; four more blankets were piled on the couch and the TV was muted, but still playing an old Disney movie. 

 

“Atlantis?” He asked, even though he’d recognized it instantly. 

 

Sora grinned. “It’s a good movie, Riku.”

 

Riku laughed. “I know. But now it just reminds me of how cute you looked as Kida last weekend.” 

 

Sora’s face turned delightfully red. “Not as good as you looked as Milo.”

 

Riku rolled his eyes at that, but it was in good nature. “Don’t try and turn this around on me.” 

 

“You know, I asked you to be Milo so you’d finally get the hint that I had a crush on you,” Sora admitted, heading back to his nest on the couch. “I thought that doing a couple’s costume might get the point across.”

 

It was Riku’s turn to turn bright red. 

 

“Clearly it didn’t work, though,” Sora said with a sigh, face planting onto the pile of blankets. 

 

“In my defense, I did almost kiss you that night,” Riku admitted, feeling a little sheepish over his lack of overall awareness. 

 

“Before Axel burst outside?” Sora asked, his voice muffled slightly by all the blankets. 

 

“Yeah, then,” Riku said. “That motherfucker.”

 

“I knew it,” Sora said, and Riku could hear the grin in his voice.  “Now come cuddle with me because I’m dying.”

 

“You’re not allowed to die,” Riku protested, but he set his shopping bag down on the counter and went to the couch anyways. 

 

Sora shifted so that he wasn’t facedown and taking up the entire couch, giving Riku enough time to sit down before practically throwing himself against him. It was natural, though, for Riku’s arm to go around him, pulling him in tight. 

 

“I wish I’d kissed you sooner,” Sora said quietly, sighing. 

 

Riku snorted. “I kissed you, for the record.”

 

“But it was my idea!” Sora reminded him, playfully wacking at Riku’s arm. 

 

“Details, details,” Riku dismissed him. Sora huffed in response. 

 

“Shut up and watch the movie,” he said, unmuting the TV and throwing his legs onto the coffee table.  

 

It took less than five minutes for Sora to rest his head on Riku’s shoulder, hair tickling the side of Riku’s neck. It would have been serene, if Sora wasn’t shivering like crazy. He was half buried in the blankets, though, so Riku held him as close as he could and hoped that it would help at least a little bit.

 

He rested his head on top of Sora’s, watching as Kida and Milo met for the first time, going through a myriad of languages to try and find common ground. 

 

It didn’t take Sora long to fall asleep, his breathing evening out into quiet snores as the movie played on. Riku traced little patterns on his arm as he slept, having not been paying attention to the movie itself and half just listening to the sound of snoring beside him. 

 

He knew that eventually he was going to have to get up and make the soup, but he wasn’t worried about it now. He did think that Sora might have the right idea when it came to napping.

 

First, though, he made sure to pull out his phone, opening the snapchat app before snapping a quick selfie of himself and, most importantly, Sora napping on his shoulder. 

 

‘ _ someone went and got the flu :(‘  _ he typed before adding it to his story. He didn’t use snapchat much, but Sora looked absolutely adorable, and admittedly sick, so it warranted a quick selfie. 

 

He found himself scrolling through Kingstagram for a few more minutes, distracted. Kairi posted a lot and he found himself spending a few extra seconds reading through the growing number of comments on Roxas’ posts. 

 

Slowly, though, his eyes started to droop and his phone fell onto his lap, and he napped alongside Sora, the both of them curled up against each other without a care in the world.

 

* * *

 

The house lights dimmed as the stage lights brightened. 

 

Riku sat a few rows from the front, in the reserved section. On one side sat Ms. Aonani, Sora’s mother, who he had met just a few hours ago over dinner, but had loved instantly. They each had a bouquet of flowers tucked under their seats to give Sora after the concert. 

 

Somewhere in the crowd were more of Sora and his friends, all there for the same reason: to support Sora, despite the fact that he’d only been able to reserve two seats. 

 

Well, Riku was there for class, too, but mostly he was just there to support Sora. 

 

The first dance began, a beautiful African dance. It was set to the beat of a drum, vibrant and full of life as the dancers began to leap and move across the stage in beautiful yellow, green, and orange clothing. It was only the first piece, but it took Riku’s breath away nonetheless. He began to lose himself in the performance, barely noticing when Sora leapt onto the stage, throwing himself down and clawing his way back to his feet again to the pounding of the drums. 

 

Riku quickly became completely immersed in the performance, eyes wide as the first piece ended and flowed into the second. It was a ballet piece set to music that Riku had been surprised to read was composed by Terra in the program before the show had started. He hadn’t realized Terra was, well, a musical person at all, but apparently he was majoring in composing and performance. It was a hauntingly beautiful and personal number, the sound of anger and agony as its core.

 

This wasn’t Sora’s solo piece, but he was still in it. Riku was surprised to see that Sora was participating in most of the non-solo pieces despite the concert being nearly an hour long. He knew that his boyfriend was athletic, but it was still impressive to watch him repeatedly leap, jump, and throw his body around like it was nothing. Riku was pretty sure he wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

 

He watched with a faint smile, following Sora throughout all the dances, watching each plié, each dip, each grand hand gesture, waltz, everything. He soaked it all in. 

 

He was supposed to be taking notes for his paper, since it was still his final for Sora’s ballet class, but his notebook and pen sat entirely forgotten on his lap. He was a boy in love; he couldn’t tear his eyes away for even a second. 

 

And then it was time for Sora’s solo piece. 

 

Riku briefly hoped that he wasn’t too nervous; after all, among the audience was Sora’s new company’s principal dancer, showing up at the last minute because she was in the area and wanted to ‘see what her new friend was going to have to offer them.’ In reality, Sora had invited the whole troupe, but she was the only one who could make the trip, from the way it sounded. Sora had been overjoyed to see her and, honestly, probably hadn’t even thought to be nervous. 

 

Riku could still remember how happy he’d been when he came home from his second audition, nearly two weeks ago now, gushing about how much better he thought he’d done and how he’d even made several of the members cry. 

 

_ “The manager even said he was going to have good news to give me!” Sora was bouncing up and down in his seat as he recounted the audition to Riku over dinner. “I mean, I don’t want to jinx it, but I really think I’ve got a shot.” _

 

_ “Of course you do, Sora,” Riku said, taking a bite of his burger. “They’d be idiots not to see it now that your foot is healed.” _

 

_ “One of them even cried during my modern piece,” Sora said wistfully. He was so excited that he’d barely touched his food as he told Riku all the details. Riku was going to have to remind him to eat sooner or later, but for now he just let Sora be excited. “Told me it was beautiful and that he couldn’t believe someone as young as me choreographed it. I think he was just being nice, but it was super sweet, anyways.”  _

 

_ Apparently, that was the piece Sora was preparing for his solo at the Winter Dance concert. Since there were only a handful of dance majors- most of the students were only minors, either because the school was incredibly selective or there just weren’t many people willing to major in it, Riku wasn’t sure which- they split them up for solos between the Winter and Spring concerts. Sora was one of the ones selected to do theirs for the Winter. Sora hadn’t told him that he’d been writing his own choreography until recently, which Riku thought was incredibly impressive, but Sora had been annoyingly humble about the entire thing.  _

 

_ “I can’t wait to see it,” Riku said.  _

 

The lights went completely dark, snapping Riku out of his memories. For the next piece, Sora’s solo, there was only a spotlight. 

 

In the center of the stage sat Sora, his arms were resting on his knees, head in his hands. 

 

Complete silence fell over the room. 

 

He’d changed costumes between this and the last piece. Riku recognized this as one of the ones Aqua had been working on it. It was simple, really: a flowy white shirt with sleeves that only went three fourths of the way down his arm and tight black pants. It was surprisingly plain, compared some of the other outfits Riku had seen from the concert, but it was perfect for him. 

 

Riku held his breath, waiting for it to start with a beating heart. 

 

The first hint of music sounded like a heartbeat. Sora didn’t move onstage. 

 

Another beat. His lifted his head with this one, staring into the audience with a blank face. 

 

Another beat and Sora cocked his head to the side, still watching them all. 

 

Then the pace picked up, the heartbeat becoming something frantic as the music began to play over it. Sora moved with it, swaying from side to side before falling, catching himself at the last minute and leaping to his feet. 

 

He moved like a hurricane. He was fast and despite the stage being completely empty, the space bent to his will as he danced, throwing his body every which way on the stage in a combination of modern dance and ballet moves. He danced like a storm in the middle of the night, steady and powerful, knocking down anyone that stood in his way and told him that he wasn’t good enough. 

 

He danced like he had nothing to lose and the world to gain as the music dropped. He reached towards the audience desperately before yanking his arm back, clutching it to his chest as he stepped back, a stricken expression on his face.

 

Riku wanted desperately to reach out to him, to tell him it was going to be okay, despite the fact that he knew deep down that it was only a performance. 

 

Sora was a storyteller with his body, painting the picture of a boy who was scared and alone, but the music began to pick up, slowly at first, before becoming a cheerful, powerful melody. 

 

Sora’s dancing mimicked the tone change, cautious at first, as if he didn’t quite believe it, like he expected it to become a tragedy again at any moment. The spotlight seemed to spread and Sora embraced the newly found space, jumping into it like a child playing in a puddle. 

 

Sora’s dance gave off the feeling that Sora himself was the one creating the sunshine and, honestly, Riku could believe that. 

 

He was so goddamn in love with him. 

 

The music swelled one final time and with it was Sora’s final move: a fouetté turn with no less than ten spins. Riku had seen him practice it a hundred times now, in the studio and in his own living room, but the way he spun now seemed effortlessly, even when Riku knew how many hours he’d spent on just this turn. 

 

And when he stuck the landing, the crowd roared with applause. Riku didn’t even realize he was crying until a tear fell from his chin and splashed onto his hand. 

 

Riku leapt to his feet, beat to it only by Sora’s mother herself. 

 

Sora beamed at the crowd as he bent in a deep bow, meeting Riku’s eyes from the stage. 

 

“I love you,” Riku mouthed. He’d never said it before and he wasn’t sure Sora could even see him with all those lights in his eyes, but he had to get it off his chest.

 

Sora’s eyes widened, though, and for a moment, Riku panicked. Was it too soon? What if Sora didn’t feel the same way? What if-

 

But Sora’s beaming smile returned as he bowed a final time, blowing a kiss straight towards Riku. 

 

As Sora left the stage, his mother grabbed ahold of Riku’s arm. 

 

“You two really are good for each other,” she said as the lights dimmed for the final dance. “I know we’ve only just met, but I do hope you’ll stick around.” 

 

“I will,” Riku promised her. He’d never felt more sure of anything in his life. 

 

Sora wasn’t in the final piece. Riku almost wished that he was, simply because he couldn’t wait to see him again, but he was probably exhausted by now. 

 

He did return for the final bows each of the students gave and Riku shamelessly cheered when it was his turn. 

 

When the house lights came on again, Riku made his way to the lobby with Ms. Aonani to wait for Sora, each holding their flowers for him.

 

As they waited, he chatted with her about the concert, each agreeing that Sora’s solo piece was their favorite, but that overall, the concert itself had been better than they’d expected. 

 

“Riku! Mom!” 

 

Riku’s head whipped as he heard his name, seeing Sora rushing towards them in the crowd that had formed of students and parents in the lobby. 

 

Riku grinned, waving him over. 

 

When Sora reached them, he jumped at Riku and Riku had to drop the bouquet to catch him as Sora’s legs wrapped around his waist. 

 

As Sora kissed him, Riku forgot all about the people around them- including Sora’s own mother, for crying out loud- until he heard Xion’s loud hoot somewhere near them.

 

Sora pulled back, blushing as Riku laughed. “Sorry. I got a little excited.” 

 

“You were amazing,” Riku told him as he set him back on his feet. 

 

“Sora!” Ms. Aonani gasped, sounding stern, but her smile gave her away. 

 

Riku bent over to pick up the flowers as Sora’s mom lectured him, Sora scratching at the back of his neck and smiling sheepishly.

 

“Oh, I’m just kidding, Sora,” she finally said, beaming at her son. “You were amazing. Give your mom a hug already.” 

 

Sora did happily, practically leaping at her, too, as he wrapped his arms around her tightly, burying his face in her shoulder. 

 

“I’m so proud of you,” she said, quiet enough that Riku could barely hear her. He looked away, not wanting to intrude on their moment. 

 

But then she said, “Get over here, Riku. This family does group hugs,” and he nearly cried again as he joined the hug. 

 

More people came to congratulate Sora, each gushing over his performance. Riku stood by his side the entire time as Sora excepted their compliments with a humble grace, grinning from ear to ear with euphoria. 

 

Finally, the crowd dispersed around them. 

 

“I’ll go wait outside,” Ms. Aonani said, winking at Riku as she turned to go. “Let’s go get milkshakes when you two are ready to go.”

 

Sora beamed at her. “Thanks, Mom.” 

 

“Don’t dawdle too long!” was all she said as she left, leaving them with the few remaining stragglers in the lobby. 

 

“You really were amazing,” Riku said quietly. 

 

Sora smiled. “You really think so?”

 

“You made me cry,” Riku told him. “And I don’t think I was the only one.” 

 

“I did not,” Sora protested, but he looked like he really wanted to believe Riku.

 

“You did,” Riku said. He finally remembered the flowers in his hands and held them out to Sora.

 

Sora had already seen them, of course, but he still looked like he was going to cry anyways. “Riku.”

 

“I love you,” Riku said again. Now that he’d said it once, he couldn’t stop. 

 

“I love you,” Sora repeated, blinking rapidly. “So fucking much.” 

 

And as Riku handed him the bouquet off and kissed his cheek he thought that maybe, just maybe, he was ready to spend the rest of his life by his sunshine’s side. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE DID IT FOLKS!!
> 
> time for me to get mad sentimental since,,, it's over,,, my baby's done. it's been a long month, folks, but im happy. it's been a long time since writing anyways has made me feel true happiness and, honestly, writing this made me fall in love with writing again. 
> 
> first off, thank u to every single one of you that read, commented, bookmarked, and/or left kudos on this fic. it means the absolute fuckin world to me and i appreciate each and every one of you sO MUCH 
> 
> i left a few storylines unfinished, i know, but i promise u this isn't the last of this au y'all'll see. i have so much planned, im so excited y'all have no iDEA-
> 
> a huge amazing thank you to [soup](https://twitter.com/spookysoupyy), as always. soup, i've said it so many that ur probably sick of it, but this fic really wouldn't be what it is without your wonderful beta-ing, suggestions, and comments. ur help has really kept me going over the last month and i love u!!! im so glad we grew closer over the last month and im gonna cherish u and this experience forever i fuckin love u!!!!
> 
> and a huge thank you to [kristin](https://twitter.com/dispositiongay)!! ur help and enthusiasm for this fic is so fuckin appreciated, i love u angst eater!!! im really glad we got to bond over dancer sora, ur friendship means the world to me!!
> 
> to get updates about future fouetté universe fics and alsobemyfriend, follow me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/vanitashours) !!! 
> 
> and, last but not least, if you enjoyed this fic and this final chapter, please leave a comment and kudos! they really do mean the world to me and i want to know everyone's thoughts it really makes my whole ass year!! 
> 
> and, again, thank you for reading! have a great day!!!
> 
> till next time!

**Author's Note:**

> thank u so much for reading!!!! i really hope you enjoyed it, and if u did, please leave a comment and kudos and let me know!!! they rlly keep me going here
> 
> im not sure what the upload schedule for this will look like (having full time job and a separate internship alongside my own dance and fitness stuff SUCKS) but since its only going to be about 3 chapters (with the next 2 being much longer probably lsdkfjgfd), it shouldn't be too long until its complete!!!
> 
> also!!! pls come talk to me on twitter i need more kingdom hearts friends im begging u be my friend please [click here for instant friendship thanks!](https://twitter.com/vanitashours)


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